My Chengdu story – 'Mafan'

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Mafan, translated as inconvenient, troublesome or annoying.

We all know it, right?  

It's probably one of the first Chinese words you encounter when you move to China. Used by Westerners who have lived here for substantially longer than yourself, dropped into conversations to put you in your place as a China newbie. It's just an extra thing that's added to the brain-in-a-blender feeling you get from learning language that's coupled with a mouth that's coming to terms with tones as well as getting used to the numbing spice of Sichuan, making you think that you have lost all language ability, in any language! It’s used with an air of superiority, as if the person is so fluent in both Chinese and English that they get them muddled sometimes.

"I've just spent two hours at the bank. What mafan!"

"I'm not going outside 3rd ring road. Too much mafan!"

Don't get me wrong, in my nearly 2 years here I've grown to love the word mafan, and also the wonderful taste of numbing spice. You see the word mafan is a bit like Sichuan numbing spice. There is a lot more meaning behind it that can't easily be translated into English, just like the flavour of numbing spice with its heat that is not necessarily hot and flavour that bursts in your mouth, swirling from your tongue slowly taking over all your taste buds in a divinely similar, but very different way than a dental anaesthesia does.

I'm sure we've all experienced a 'mafan day'. One where things have gone wrong, or you've experienced the conundrum that occurs in Chengdu when things you expect to take a long time don't and things that you expect to only take a moment take several days. We all love to share those war stories of being an expat.

I have a bit of an issue about the use of this word however. For some people I talk with it seems that it finishes with mafan, but my experience is that if you look beyond it you see a whole other beautiful world open up to you. In our time here my wife and I have doodled and stuttered like a cold Bugs Bunny through Chinese classes, found out we were pregnant, rented an apartment, went to pre-natal checkups in a public hospital and had an amazing birth in the same Chinese hospital, registered as an alien on several occasions and even forget to register our son as an alien and had to pay a hefty fine as a result. Yes, there have been times where things have been complicated or could surely be done in a simpler way, but at every step of our time in Chengdu we have met some amazing, caring people. From the bigger things like the Chinese doctor and nurses who helped welcome our red-headed son into the world, to the smaller situations where staff at the local Walmart put up with my bumbling attempts to communicate, give me time to type in Pleco and excuse my over use of the phase ‘tingbudong’ (听不懂: I hear but I don't understand). One of the stereotypes we often hear is that China don't do customer service. Well I want to say now that I disagree with that. I think Chinese people have been more helpful, understanding and willing to help me than a lot of people from my home country would be to someone as inept at communicating as I am in Chinese. Yes, things are certainly different, but I don't think there is any more mafan than what we get at home. You just need to try communicating with the embassy of The United Kingdom of Mafan Britain and Northern Ireland, to realise that you can have as much, if not more trouble there as when doing things in China.

Just today as I registered afresh at the PSB, all the staff recognised me and smiled and asked how my son was, asking to see pictures of him. These are people who recognise me from an interaction 6 months ago! It's because of how the people of Chengdu have welcomed me into their city, how they have grace and time for me learning their language and culture and are willing to help me in a million different ways each day that makes me want to stay here, and makes me happy and glad that I've chosen this city to live in. Thank you Chengdu!

The opinions expressed do not represent the views of the China Daily website.

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