‘So tell me, what does a landscape architect do?’ I asked.
‘Like a gardener, we design outdoor spaces, like community gardens, public parks, children’s playgrounds, with details such as where the cars park and where to locate flower beds.’
The women from the reading group were leaving. We stood up, hugging them goodbye. Now only you and I were left on the sofa. You asked:
‘So what will you do after finishing your PhD?’
What a question. The British only granted me a three-year visa. And then what? Would I find a job here? Or could I go back to China, with my non-practical qualifications? Should I talk to you about this? I wondered. We didn’t know much about each other yet. And, perhaps, you might think I was just like all those Chinese who come here purely with practical aims. Few of them show any imaginative life during their time overseas. That’s how Chinese people appear to Western people – in America, in Britain, in Italy, in Spain. Everywhere in the world. Young Chinese students study hard, while old Chinese people work hard. Faceless and voiceless. Should I talk to you about this? Was this a pressing matter for me? The truth was, I had no one to talk to in this country. This was not my country. I knew very few people here.
In the pub, as I was about to reply, a football match started on a giant TV screen above us. Liverpool versus Arsenal? I had thought arsenal was a weapon factory, I didn’t know it was a football place too. The noise level became unbearable. I stared at the screen, and thought I could never become an English person. Let alone an English football fan.
爱屋及乌 – ài wū jí wū
– In Chinese we say, 爱屋及乌 – ài wū jí wū. Which means if you love your mansion you’ll love the magpie too.
– Why? What’s the connection between mansion and magpie?
– In Chinese ‘mansion’ and ‘magpie’ have the same pronounciation – wū.
A room with a view was not my first concern. But a warm bedroom upstairs (no matter how small) with a south-facing window was my basic need in England. After a desperate period of searching, I found a top-floor flat on Richmond Road with two bedrooms. One of the flatmates had decided to go back to Spain. Apparently he was not keen to live in Brexit Britain. The rent was reasonable. I decided I would take it. The other flatmate was a post-doc student, from Italy. She didn’t mind the situation in the UK. ‘Naples is worse, so I can’t complain!’ Besides, she was writing a thesis on Swinging Sixties. ‘Thank God I got myself out from Naples. I love London. A great city,’ she said, while cooking some ravioli in the kitchen.
There was only one bookshelf in the living room. Our books were mixed together. After a few nights, I discovered that she only took my books to read at bedtime, and I, too, took her books to read at night. We both discovered our perfect books to fall asleep with.
Since meeting you, I had bought two books about Germany. One was a history book about Berlin. Another one was The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann. I was told at university that the magic mountain was a Swiss mountain and not a German one. But it would do for now. I placed the novel on my bedside table, not in the living room. I thought of buying an Australian novel too, perhaps Patrick White’s The Tree of Man. But maybe I should ask you first.
While I was on the sofa leafing through the Berlin book, my flatmate asked:
‘Are you going to Berlin soon?’
‘No. But I met a German, actually a half German,’ I explained. ‘That’s why.’
She giggled, and asked: ‘And the other half is?’
‘Australian,’ I answered. ‘I know. Opposing characters, like yin and yang.’
‘Ha, so you prefer reading books about Germany than Australia?’
Perhaps, I thought. But what do I know about either of these cultures?
‘In Chinese we say, 爱屋及乌 – ài wū jí wū. Which means if you love your mansion you’ll love the magpie too.’
‘Why? What’s the connection between mansion and magpie?’
‘In Chinese “mansion” and “magpie” have the same pronounciation – wū.’
She looked at me, as if I had grown three heads. Then she yawned and walked away, carrying her Swinging Sixties book.
On my bed later that evening, in my pyjamas, I looked at Internet images of those ice-age lakes in and around Berlin, and their strange German names: Schlachtensee, Wannsee, Müggelsee, Plötzensee. So they call their lake see (sea). And they call their sea meer. Curiously non-English, I thought. This was of course obvious. German is different from English. But still, I realised, I was encountering a third language. This was very different from learning English, because English was always in the atmosphere like pollen from the plants permeating the air, whereas German was like a specific mountain in the landscape which you had to have a particular ambition to climb.
Der Mond – Moon
– Why is moon masculine in German?
– There is nothing objective about how you feel about stars or planets. It’s all literature.
The next time I met you, I asked many questions about your German-ness. Or rather, I interrogated you and even accused you of being Germanic. I found German culture confusing.
‘So you are half German. Can I ask you a question? In every culture, moon is feminine. In Chinese too. Why is moon masculine in German? Do you really see the moon as a male character?’
We were in a Turkish cafe near Dalston. Everyone around us was eating brown mushy chickpeas. People in east London seemed to eat a lot of chickpeas.
‘Why is moon masculine in German?’ You repeated my question.
As if you sensed this was not a simple linguistic question. You thought about it for a few seconds. Then you answered:
‘Well, der Mond. In some old languages like Sanskrit, the moon is masculine and the sun feminine. I remember learning in school about some pre-Babylonian Sumerian languages, and the word for moon is explicitly masculine, as it is in Arabic, in which the word for sun is feminine.’
It was like you were giving me a lecture, presenting the findings of some research you had carried out on historical linguistic study.
‘I thought you were a landscape architect. But you sound like a linguist. You know a lot about language!’
‘A landscape architect knows everything.’ You smiled. ‘Well, to be honest, this isn’t the first time I’ve been asked this by a non-German speaker.’
‘So you think it’s just a different tradition that we see the moon as female?’
‘Yes, there is nothing objective about how you feel about stars or planets. It’s all literature. People put too much feeling and emotion into these things.’
I thought about what you said for a while. Perhaps I was just one of those romantic and cultural preservationists who view things according to convention? Or according to the clichés of literature, as you pointed out? But I continued:
‘So if der Stuhl – the chair – is masculine, then why is the table not feminine? I thought chair and table make a perfect match.’
‘There is no logical explanation. There is no why. You just can’t ask a question like that about a language.’ Your eyes were looking for something, then you pointed to my cutlery. ‘For example. You have die Gabel – the fork, der Löffel – the spoon and das Messer – the knife. A fork is feminine, a spoon masculine and a knife neutral. Why? No reason. Just convention. So, the only way to learn the genders of nouns is to treat their articles as a component of the word.’
‘That’s very unnatural for Chinese people. In our language we don’t have articles.’
‘You don’t