Do you like green tea?

I went to China this summer to teach English through Princeton in Asia. I didn't speak any Chinese before I left, so I had someone teach me to say "Hello," "I love rice" and "I love you." I figured I would be able to find company that I loved, and together we could eat rice — which I also loved.

After two weeks in China, I knew enough to say my name, to explain I was American and to tell people that the People's Republic of China would live 10,000 years. Undoubtedly, though, the backbone of my linguistic development was a full skit in Chinese, the product of a hot cab ride across Beijing, an amused taxi driver and Jean, who can speak Chinese and was willing to put up with me and Mike.

The skit basically ran as follows:

Mike: Hi.

Me: Hi.

Mike: How is your parents' health?

Me: Good, and yours?

Mike: Bad.

Me: Why?

Mike: I came to Beijing yesterday. Beijing is in the People's Republic of China.

Me: You are a bad son.

Mike: (Looks despondent.)

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Me: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You are a good person. I love you.

Mike: Thank you. I love you but you cost too much.

Me: I don't want it. (Runs away.)

Mike: (Chases.) I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I love you.

Me: It's OK.

Mike: What did you do today?

Me: I went to the bar.

Mike: What did you drink?

Me: I drank green tea. Do you or do you not like green tea?

Mike: I do not like green tea. I like beer.

Me: I like beer too.

Mike: Excellent! Let's go to the bar!

Me: Excellent!

It's almost astounding how long it took us to get the 20-odd lines down. I particularly had trouble with the word "too," which sounded a lot to me like "Woahhhh Yeahhhh" but apparently had much more intrinsic linguistic subtlety and required more sleight of mouth than pretending you were drunk at a concert. Also, I hadn't yet grasped the concept of tones, the several distinct sounds essential to spoken Chinese. Instead I moved my head up for the first tone, down for the fourth and a little backwards for the second tone. I looked, more or less, as I do when I play Mario Kart.

For the most part, we figured out the tones, got our vocab down, and so, by the time we had mastered the skit, it was a reliable goto. Somehow, even the attempt to speak Chinese was enough to ingratiate us in most situations. In Jishou, the town where we taught for six weeks, Mike and I performed for the students of an English immersion camp, the governor of the province and the officials at the university, as well as whole slew of other audiences. They laughed at our butchered tones but left at least slightly more convinced that we were genuinely interested in their country, their language and in what they had to teach us.

During one of my last mornings in Jishou, however, I found the skit useful outside its normal context. I had left the apartment early to hike up the mountain just outside the city. As usual, it was extremely crowded: farmers balancing poles with water jugs on their backs, women walking in pairs, old men on their way to meditate. The mountain was always loud with the yelps of people saying hello. That morning, I was still a little sleepy and enjoying my anonymity while observing the bustle. I kept my head down, but a man passing up the staircase said "Ni hao," so I turned around to say hello in return. My conversational abilities quickly exhausted, we took to charades. He pumped his arms and pretended to wipe his forehead: "Was I exercising?" I pointed at the empty water bottles he had and mimicked the heavy pull they'd put on his back: "Was he going for water?" We said goodbye at the top of the mountain, and he had turned and gone on his way when it occurred to me that we still had miles of conversation to cover. I ran and caught up with him and excitedly asked whether or not he liked green tea. He laughed, wanting to know if I was serious or not, and then smiled and answered before we went on our way again.

I always think about which phrase I'd want to know if I could only know one in a foreign language. Pragmatically, perhaps "Where is the nearest American embassy?" Fun, if ill-advised: "Sure, why not?" A friend's sister knows how to say "It really is a beautiful day, but I'm wicked hungover," in 12 languages. But suppose there's no emergency, or it's rainy, or you're not actually that hungover?

For all intents and purposes, I found the phrase from the skit to function perfectly. Obscure enough, hard enough to say (Knee she hwuan boo she hwuan loo — through clenched teeth — chaaaah) and universal enough to discover something very fundamental about a person: Do they, or do they not, like green tea? As it turns out, he did like green tea, and that's nice, because I do too.