Language

I don't speak much Vietnamese but I can get by and make myself understood. However here in China we have once  again been plunged into a country where we can't understand a thing. The difficult thing with Mandarin is you can't understand even the characters. Thankfully there is a little English around - like train station signs but I have come up with three things I need to remember when communicating with anyone who I don't have a common language with -

1. It doesn't matter how many times you say it - I still don't understand it.
2. it doesn't matter how many people repeat it - I still don't understand it.
3. It doesn't matter how loud you say it - I still don't understand it.

The only thing that really crosses a language barrier is pictures (though you have to be careful that the picture that looks like chicken is in fact chicken and not donkey, snake or something else that I don't want to eat) and pointing - as I learnt last night when I dragged a poor waiter to someone else's table and pointed to their red wine - I really wanted a glass of wine rather then the water he thought I wanted.
But as I have said a number of times to the children I can't complain their English is better then my .........(substitute any number of languages here)!