You guys are ruining the fun of learning putonghua... half of my motivation is that so few meiguoren can speak it! Now it’s not nearly as cool to me, since one small thread on Sweden finds three of us in just 33 minutes! *sigh*
Sorry, but my Chinese is limited to “hello”, “want/don’t want”, “beer”, and “thank you”. I got by just fine by pointing and using a calculator (until I got to a place where they’d never seen one). In out of the way places where they don’t see white folk (big noses) you can attract a crowd - but the people I met were unfailingly warm and polite. It makes me ashamed when I see the way many Americans treat “strangers”.