My love of China began with a thank-you note

Manya Koetse shares her story about China during the opening ceremony of the 2016 Visiting Program for Young Sinologists at the National Library of China on July 6, 2016. [Photo/Chinaculture.org]

I now consider Beijing my second home, and I return here as often as I can to rekindle precious memories and to create new ones.

It is hard to imagine that I was so lost in China when I was here for the first time as a tourist with my parents. The reason why we were left at that Suzhou street years ago eventually turned out to be a very simple one. A lovely Suzhou lady had noticed our distress and walked over to ask us where we needed to go and what the problem was.

“We need to catch our train at the station, but nobody is willing to take us”, my mother said, desperately showing her the Chinese note.

“But..,” the lady hesitantly said as she studied the piece of paper: “This paper only says 'xièxiè'(谢谢) – Chinese for ‘thank you’. No wonder no one will take you.”

We suddenly realized that my father had repeatedly asked those shopkeepers to “write this down please, thank you! Thank you!”

Apparently, they had assumed us funny laowai foreigners wanted to know the word for ‘thanks’ in Chinese. We got what we asked for: xièxiè in Chinese characters.

That explained the puzzled expression on the taxi drivers’ faces as they just read “thank you” on the note we showed them. Thanks to the help of the passerby, we eventually did get to the station and were able to catch our train.

I will always remember that day, as it marked the beginning of my journey from helpless tourist to becoming a sinologist – a journey that is still well under way with many more things to learn, see, do and write about in an ever-changing and ever-buzzing China, where saying xièxiè will always have a special meaning to me.