China, and all that I was wrong about

By Pamela Cerdeira

Susana is not called Susana, but that is how she introduces herself and answers, she chose the name from a list presented by her Spanish teacher; Jack is not called Jack, he used to be called Charly but he did not like it, a teacher at school chose it, he prefers Jack because it reminds him of the movie Titanic, Jocelyn is not called Jocelyn either, and so most of the Chinese we met, who actually have unpronounceable names (for us) and were almost always renamed by a teacher. I can imagine no greater form of kindness than that of one who changes his name so that the other, a foreigner, can pronounce it. Shie, shieNobody laughs at our attempt to pronounce a "thank you", they nod smiling, and also come closer to read the translation that my phone has made, they take out theirs and answer hoping that the technology is at the level of the conversation we are trying to have, I suspect it is not yet, but on both sides we look for different words that mean the same thing or signs that allow us to get closer to what we want to say, they smile, they always smile.