Wearing an oversized pair of glasses (without any lenses), Huang Lan, 24, plays the role of a teacher, but with an outsized sense of fun, standing in front of a blackboard and merrily waving a piece of chalk in front of her students as they stumble over the pronunciations.

"You've made it really fun. If only all language teachers in China could be so funny," wrote one Beijing netizen on the comments section included on Say It in Shanghai, the new 25-part podcast series on China Daily's website at chinadaily.com.cn.

"I really want to learn. Thank you very much," wrote another local netizen about the first show that aired on April 19.

Shanghainese, a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken by nearly 14 million people in Shanghai and surrounding communities, is not understood by most of the rest of Mandarin-speaking China, although it is spoken in some Chinese-American neighborhoods in United States cities such as New York.

The differences in dialects can be enough to land a visitor in trouble, as another China Daily online video series, The Week, pointed out in an earlier April skit. In that spoof, an expat mixed up the very different pronunciations for nue (for man) and nu (for woman) in Shanghainese when asking directions. The mistake landed him in the wrong bathroom, where he was chased out (and decked with a roll of toilet paper) by the women inside.

The idea for the new series, Say It in Shanghai, surprisingly was not that of Huang, a native of Shanghai, but that of her co-worker, Beijing native Li Qiao, 26.

"My head was filled with the Shanghai Expo, and I was thinking I should do something different," says Li, a graduate of the Communications University of China in Beijing who has worked at China Daily's multimedia department for two years.

"Like New York and Los Angeles, Shanghai and Beijing don't always see eye to eye, so I thought a program like this could help," she says.

"I don't speak Shanghainese, but as a Beijinger, I know if I meet a stranger for the first time and he can speak just a little Mandarin, I think, hey, we're friends."

Huang, who speaks Mandarin and Shanghainese, was delighted to star as teacher. "Shanghai is my hometown. I feel very proud that Shanghai will host the 2010 World Expo, and I needed to do something for my hometown," she says.

Even though Huang was born in Shanghai, she admits her heart now belongs to Beijing, where she obtained her undergraduate degree in philosophy at Peking University. She later obtained her master's degree in journalism at the University of Hong Kong, coming to work for China Daily's multimedia department six months ago.

"Personally, I prefer Beijing," Huang says. "I'm emotionally attached."

Like her co-worker Li, Huang is happy at the positive comments about the show.

"It will bring people closer, plus it's a lot of fun. And they can show off in Shanghai if they learn the dialect, which is very different from Mandarin or Cantonese," Huang says before donning her oversized glasses to film the next episode.

On Say It in Shanghai, the first lesson consisted of learning how to say the basics such as "please" and "thank you". Later episodes involve more complicated phrases and also fun advice on how to see famous sites such as The Bund, a pricey destination in Shanghai, and how to find inexpensive stuffed buns for breakfast at city food stands. In Shanghai, those stuffed buns are filled with hot juice, so Huang also advises viewers to take a small bite first to avoid burning one's tongue.

New episodes will be posted each week on the video page at chinadaily.com.cn with links to download earlier episodes.

The author hosts The Week on chinadaily.com.cn

China Daily

(China Daily 05/03/2010 page8)