But how do I remember the names? It’s as though somebody put
lots of g’s and a’s and n’s and u’s and d’s and h’s in a bag, emptied some of
them out wherever they went and said ‘that’s what we’ll call this place.’ Let’s
face it, if I can’t remember what a parsnip is called, how the hell am I
supposed to differentiate between Daming, Dunhuang and Guangdong?
And then there are others that don’t have an –ng ending in
sight, like Xanxi Province and Xaanxi Province.
That isn’t a typo; the two of them really do exist next to each other. I mean,
would we in England have two
counties called Rutland
and Ruutland? No, so why must the Chinese do it? To confuse foreigners, maybe?
Or maybe it’s because western popular media makes a habit of giving Chinese names to
villains who are brilliant but reprehensible, like Ming the Merciless and Dr Fu
Manchu. Maybe they’re just getting their own back. (I wonder whether they have
comics with characters called Trump the Tyrant and Black Bessie the Wigan
Werewolf in them. I would.)
And then there’s the multitude of Chinese musical
instruments to sweat over. I’ve just about got the guzheng, the guqin, the erhu, the
pippa and the dizzi in my memory bank, but that’s only five. I’m struggling
badly with the other 5,000.
But I did learn tonight that I can get a hulusi (I had to
look it up; it’s still knocking on the door of my memory bank requesting a
residents’ permit, but the gatekeeper is getting deafer by the day) for the meagre
sum of £14.23. The sound of it puts me in mind of sheep and summer days, and
the sheep are probably the only ones who would ever hear me play it. Should any
passing farmer ask ‘What’s that you’re playing?’ I would have to answer ‘Dunno,
mate. It’s from China.’
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