otro dia otra aventura (translation: another day, another adventure)
After hearing from a few of you about how much you enjoyed my honesty in the post about naked grannies (Jan. 2009 post) and my hourglass coat (March 2009 post), I have decided to take the plunge and also tell you of my adventure while purchasing a nursing bra.
Before leaving America this past summer with my newborn, Lily, I decided I’d better purchase some nice underwire nursing bras, just in case China didn’t have any. Eight months later all the bras I had purchased had somehow de-wired themselves, a real bummer since I’d spent a little extra cash to get good quality bras. So, a friend and I decided to go shopping at a local market-style area to find me some new clothes and begin my search for a nursing bra.
With my limited Chinese, I fumbled my way along the bra section of the market trying to get my point across to the ladies working in the shop. Thankfully my friend’s Chinese was better and she at least knew the word for bra, but how does one get their point across when wanting to purchase a nursing bra and needing an underwire one? Here’s how the conversation went–translated literally word for word, “Sorry, I don’t know how to say this, but I need…my milk thing…I give to child to eat…don’t look pretty in there. Need to buy different one.”
They would quizzically stare back at me, for what felt like hours, and then exclaim, “Ah! mama zhou!” My friend and I surmised that “mama zhou” must mean nursing bra in Chinese. The owner would then pull out an array of bras for me to look at, but the ones they showed me had no underwire in them. I would then say, “Sorry, but [and at this point I am pointing at my chest] look bad…need thing in there.”
That’s when I would hear the same words that I heard at the previous shop, “mei you” meaning “don’t have.” When I left one shop, the ladies could be heard down the aisle repeating my dialogue, “bu hao kan!” (looks bad) and giggling at the whole situation!
Undeterred, I was now armed with a new vocabulary word “mama zhou.” Now, I could walk into the bra stores and simply say, “You mama zhou ma?” and the shop owner would say “you” meaning “have” or “mei you” meaning “don’t have.”
I finally did find a shop that sold underwire nursing bras but then I stumbled across my second quandary; what size am I using the Chinese system? I looked at the shop keeper and explained that I don’t know my sizes in China. That’s when my friend piped up and said to her, “I know her size!” So, once again I was dependent on someone else to help me out of my quandary. In Spanish one would explain it this way: otro dia otra aventura (Another day, another adventure).
