Tom, my friend from Beijing was with me in a taxi in Shanghai. At a junction, the driver asked ‘big turn or small turn’. I then said ’small turn’, please.

After getting off the taxi, Tom asked me what I meant by small turn?

OK, I actually spoke with the taxi driver in mandarin which is the standard spoken language in China. As a Beijinger, how come he couldn’t understand?

Well, I spoke mandarin, but mandarin in Shanghai style. That is I directly used some Shanghai local dialect word but pronunced it like mandarin.

Take the above as an example:

Shanghainese like to say big turn, which means turn left, and small turn which means turn right. Why? People drive on the right in China. So imagine if you are at a cross, turning left needs bigger movement!

And another example is:

In Beijing, the taxi is called Di (pronounced as Dee). And this is widely accepted in most parts of China.

In Shanghai, taxi in Shanghai dialect is called Cha Tou(pronounced as Cha Toe). Why? One explanation is when Shanghai first had taxis in the city, the car plate number for taxi usually started with X. X in Shanghai dialect is called Cha Tou.

So don’t worry if you can understand every word a Shanghainese speak, but still cannot get the meaning. They are speaking mandarin in Shanghai style.

Tags: Culture Matters

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