Effectively Pointing Your Way To Success

If you're China, and you have no clue how to ask for anything, perhaps you should learn the art of pointing. If your upbringing was anything like mine, you were told that pointing is rude. Never quite understanding that rule, I just followed suit. However, I'm in China and the only thing I can remember from my simple phrase guide is "knee how" which means hello and "sheh sheh" (thank you). So when the hotel "drive me here" card no longer works, it's time to get to pointing your way success. There's all sorts of points. There's the "curious, confused point", "the get the hell away from me point", and my favorite, the "I want that point". It's simple, find what you want, and if you want to know the price, just point to the tag. You'll be so surprised as to how much easier and less frustrated you'll be if you just stop trying to communicate verbally. If you're only going to be in China for two weeks or so, why learn phrases that you won't know how to respond to? If anything, once you ask one of those phrases, the locals are going to assume you speak the language, and they'll start speaking fast. Then you'll end up more confused than you started off. So just start pointing and using bootleg sign language. Example, I went into a cosmetics store looking for hair products, and all I did was pull my hair. The sales associate took me right over to the hair products. Being a mute is healthy sometimes. It's time to use your intuitive survival skills. Throw away your western intelligence for the moment, and pick up "cave man instincts." Life in China will be so much more pleasurable, if you just learn the art of pointing.