Learning Luganda, part 2: How to tell Chinese people apart

I am sitting at Margarette's house. She is one of the "mothers" who works at Outside the Dream.

"Wei bare," I say to her (thanks). "Akaunga-di burungi" (the posho is rock and roll.)

"Kali, kali," she responds laughing. Laughing is a very popular response to Muzungu's speaking Luganda.

"Blake," she says. "Let me ask you something."

"Okay," I say.

"You work so hard to learn Luganda. You plan to marry Muganda, don't you?"

"No," I say. "I plan to marry Chinese." (note: Dijia - bu yao dang xin, wo na shi hou zhi zai wan ta men er yi. Ni dang ran hai shi you zi you de ni.)

"Chinese!", everyone screams laughing, clapping their hands.

"Oh no!" yells Mama Hilda. "The Chinese! They all look the same."

"Yes," I say. "That causes many problems for them."

"Blake," says Mama Joyce. "If you marry Chinese and you go to the market in China, you will never be able to tell which one she is."

"If they all look the same," I say, "then it doesn't matter. I'll take home whomever is standing closest to me."

This time, the men laugh much harder than the women.

"You can't tell them apart from their eyes or their hair," says Mama Hilda. "And they are all very small and short."

The women discuss in Luganda for a second and then come to a most unexpected conclusion: "Perhaps, you can tell them apart from their hands."

"Yes," says Joyce. "Their hands are always different."

I have been surprised by what physical elements are emphasized by certain cultures and languages. In China, women place great emphasis on the quality of other women's skin. In America, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on the color rather than quality of the skin (in terms of olive, pale, dark, etc. not in terms of race.) But, this was my first introduction to an emphasis on the hands.

But after this incident, I heard more and more comments about hands. When I was lighting a cigarette with my friends, Robert and Alex (who are Ugandan artists/heavy drinkers who live in my neighborhood.) They commented twice on my hands, and then twice on Robert's hands. (Robert and I both have good hands, it seems, but I have not yet mastered Ugandan wax matches.)

All in all this makes sense. When you meet a Muganda, you shake hands for what seems like ten or fifteen minutes. There are numerous motions and movements that are made with the hands during this process. When you hang out with a Muganda, you tend to punch fists or shake hands again after every few sentences.

Hands are key not only to getting along with people here, but for Kampala's small Chinese community, they may also be the key to remembering precisely what one's spouse looks like.