Hugh’s meagre grasp of Mandarin cracks up the in-laws

Songwriter and larger-than-life performer Hugh Reed O’Hagan left his native Glasgow for an extended visit to south-western China to work as an English teacher. He travelled to Zunyi, in Guizhou Province with his wife, Duofen, to meet his in-laws. Here Hugh shares his Glaswegian perspective on life in a far country he has come to love and looks at how his Chinese students view Scotland.

Duofen and I married in Glasgow and in China. When I met her mother for the first time my wife, in front of her entire family, asked me to try out some of my very basic Mandarin Chinese.
The first thing that came to mind was an expression my wife often says to me which is ‘Ni, ni ni zhe ge huai dong xi’. I didn’t really understand what it meant, but Duofen always took great pleasure in shouting this at me.
I thought I’d try it out, only to discover it meant ‘You, you, you, you’re a bad egg’. Considering the respectful rituals expected of a son-in-law, this came as a big surprise. Everybody laughed – except Duofen’s mother.
I had a great experience teaching my pupils, who were all aiming to attend Western universities. Three from Beijing are studying now in Glasgow, and I see them regularly. It’s been great to show them round our city and get their impressions.
They, for example think Glasgow is a very old-looking city, as in China most of the buildings are very modern. They prefer restaurants to pubs, go out early, say 6pm, and go home early, say 8.30pm, even at the weekend.
They, in common with most visitors, find Glaswegians to be very friendly.
One of my other students is in Aberdeen. When she got there she sent me an email saying: ‘I thought you told me Aberdeen was a big town’. To her, it seemed nothing more than a big village.
Like most visitors to China, I had to see the Great Wall. I got a big surprise when I went there as I saw a musician playing Auld Lang Syne on a Chinese stringed instrument.
When Chinese people think of Western New Year, this is the song that comes to mind.
When I attended a jam session at Celtic Connections, Duofen brought the house down when she launched into the Chinese version of Robert Burns’s biggest hit.
It was the small things I missed while in China. Most restaurants don’t serve coffee, it’s not easy to buy cheese, and the bread for some reason is very sweet.
The only easily obtainable publication in English is the woeful China Daily, the mouthpiece of the government.
Television isn’t particularly good, and the Chinese don’t watch it. They watch Western programmes through the internet which are subtitled in Chinese.
There’s a fantastic vibrancy to the place, very little crime, unbelievable buildings and constantly strange sights. For example, female construction workers, people of all ages sleeping at all times of the day on the street under street barrows, guys on rickshaws driving the wrong way up a motorway.
For me, China is so interesting that I’m almost reluctant to write this article as I don’t want too many Westerners going and diluting its uniqueness. Seriously though, check it out soon, before Starbucks, KFC and McDonalds take over.