Your hands are sweaty and you are shaking slightly. You look around and realize that you are on stage, in front of a crowd of people, and you are expected to perform. You do not know what you are supposed to say. You did not have time to practice or to prepare your lines and now you are on stage being watched and you need to completely improvise everything. Quick - you have two minutes to think about what to say! Wait, that is not enough - let's add something else to make the task even more difficult. You must address these people in a foreign language: Chinese, for example. But then you wake up and realize it's all a dream...
This, however, was not a dream for me. This was my day last weekend. It all started out as a great idea - no improvising in Chinese for me. My friends and fellow co-workers were invited to introduce the opening of the Chevrolet Cruze at a car dealership. Two of us - Sable and Bob (a Canadian teacher) would do the introduction in English and a Chinese woman would translate for the completely Chinese audience. The Chinese woman, Miao Miao, asked me to help her with the translation and go up to the stage with her, which was no problem. I knew I wouldn't be much of a help, since her English was better than my Chinese and it is much easier to translate from a foreign language to your own, but I agreed anyway. Then tragedy struck! Her boss called her over and instructed her to have me do the translation from English to Chinese completely on my own! As much as I protested and tried to put my foot down, Miao Miao was more afraid of the consequences to saying no to her boss than to me, so I had no choice. With two minutes to decide how to introduce a car completely in Chinese, I quickly scribbled some sentences on a piece of paper.
I was surprisingly not nervous as I went up on stage and waited my turn to speak. I listened to Sable and Bob's English introduction with a smile on my face, outwardly calm as I faced the crowd. When it was my turn to speak, I started with, "大家好！我叫 Abbie Kramer。 我来介绍一下这辆轿车". Which basically means, "Hello everybody, my name is Abbie Kramer. I am going to introduce this car a little bit". That earned me a round of applause because the crowd was so pleased that they could actually understand what I was saying. During the next part of my impromptu speech, I ended up covering my face with the papers that Miao Miao had prepared for me as I tried to decode her pinyin explaining the details of the car. That part didn't go so well, since I had absolutely no clue as to what I was saying. But, when I walked over to the giant cardboard cut-out of Wentworth Miller (the famous actor who does commercials for the car) and started to talk about his TV series, I said that he is "帅哥" (a handsome guy) and the audience absolutely loved it and started to laugh and clap. Having made my first joke in Chinese in front of an audience, I smiled, repeated it again, and continued. I then explained that in America, many people drive these kinds of cars (Chevrolets) and Americans think that these cars are wonderful, safe, and beautiful. Americans love these cars. (I do not know if it is true or not, but when you are trying to sell a car, I figured that it is fine to exaggerate a little). Again, I got a round of applause. And, finally, my speech was finished! I walked off stage with a smile on my face and a wave to the crowd.
And that is my experience selling cars in China. In Chinese. But, out of difficult things come rewards: I got a wonderful lunch and dinner, to walk around and see the largest private garden in the Jiangsu province, to do Karaoke, and to meet new friends.
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