Without words

Nonverbal communication - a recent experience

I was on the train to Munich recently, on my way back from visiting customers, when a Chinese man boarded in Stuttgart and sat down opposite me. He gave me a friendly smile, placed a printout of a train schedule on the little table, pushed it in my direction and pointed to the word Munich. I believed to perceive a questioning facial expression and he obviously wanted to be reassured that he was sitting in the right train. I nodded, his face lit up and he answered "Bittedanke" ("pleasethankyou").

Now this would normally the right time for some small talk. It turned out, however, that the Chinese man did not speak a single word of English and that his entire German vocabulary consisted of "Bittedanke" - and this was more than my Chinese vocabulary after all. In the course of the further train journey we sat in silence opposite each other. At every stop he pushed the train timetable in my direction, pointed questioningly to the name of the train station, nodding, "Bittedanke", smiling, sitting in silence - this is how our journey could have continued up to our scheduled arrival in Munich-Pasing at 20:33.

But things took a different turn. As we had passed Augsburg, the Chinese man turned the piece of paper over and disclosed his final destination: the train schedule had him change in Pasing to the urban railroad network, and travel to Sauerlach, which is south of Munich. I realized immediately that the specified urban train would no longer be viable due to the fact that the train was running late, and given the questioning look of the Chinese man it was evident to me that he would have no idea of how to get to the urban railroad network. In other words, even know what this network is about in the first place.

I know the feeling of helplessness when one is in a foreign country and cannot communicate and has no idea of how things work. I have often been in such situations and there has always been someone who helped me out of my predicament. Which is why I could not leave the Chinese fellow alone with his situation.

Well, the decisive turn in the course of events came about in view of the fact that I happen to live quite near Sauerlach, only two villages away, and that I actually have to drive through Sauerlach on my way home. So the simplest solution would be to take the Chinese man with me when I get to my car at the main train station and to drive him to the urban railroad station in Sauerlach. This would be a lot easier than assisting him to find his way in Pasing. But how should I communicate this without words? I was reminded of a friend of mine called Jim who lives in San Francisco. I got to know him in Sudan and together we travelled nearly half of the world. Somehow Jim has the gift of communicating with every person on this planet without knowledge of their language. I don't really know how he does it although I have experienced it often enough. I have always envied him for this capability and was ashamed of my failure in this respect. But one thing I had learned from him was that one has to totally ignore any feelings of embarrassment that might crop up in nonverbal communication.

So I decide to implement my Chinese man to Sauerlach plan, and that I will not care how any of the other people on the train will react to my efforts. I take the train schedule and a ballpoint pen and draw a little house and a little family in simple lines next to the “S-Bahn” symbol of the urban rail network and point to myself and the word Sauerlach, and then I make steering movements with my arms and draw a car next to the Munich main train station (I nearly starting humming some engine noises), and then I pointed back and forth between the Chinese traveler and myself. And he seems to have understood, and takes my hand and shakes it. Bittedanke, bittedanke, bittedanke! And again we are sitting there in silence, grinning and looking at each other sheepishly, and I slowly begin to comprehend the implications of this undertaking: have we really understood each other? Does he really want to go to Sauerlach? And what will happen there? Will he be picked up? Can he really trust me? Can I trust him?
Then we arrive in Pasing and he now becomes a bit nervous because he should be getting off the train here according to the timetable. I indicate to him that he should remain seated. Bittedanke. Apparently he has not quite understood the entire plan. At the central train station I shoulder my backpack und he grabs my other shoulder bag, and does not want to part with it so we walk side by side in the direction of multi-level parking lot. In the escalator I put my hand on my chest and say "Andreas" - which he cannot pronounce and I therefore shorten to Andy. He tells me his name which somehow starts with "Nin" but the rest of it is incomprehensible to me, so I decide to call him Nin. We shake hands. Me Tarzan, you Jane.

The journey in the car proceeds in silence. Nin practices the pronunciation of the word Sauerlach, and I reflect on my incapability to make myself understood. I enjoy communicating. I love language. I tend to use considerably more words than would be required for the pure exchange of information. I hate the feeling of helplessness when I cannot express myself. That happens only rarely because with English language skills and a healthy foundation in Romanic languages one can somehow manage to get by quite reasonably in large parts of the world. But now I am in the middle of Munich and for the first time I am experiencing a situation in which I need to exchange definite information with a stranger and cannot speak a single word. It is incredible what a difference it makes if one only knows fifty words of a language or not a single word at all.
After having driven out of the center of town after some 20 minutes and taking the Autobahn in the direction of Salzburg, I notice my passenger showing some slight signs of nervousness. Nin was probably experiencing some doubts as to where the journey was heading. Finally, the word "Sauerlach" appeared for the first time on a sign. I point and say "Sauerlach" and Nin repeats "Sauerlach", laughs with a sign of relief and showers me with a profusion of "Bittedanke". A quarter of an hour later I put him out at his destination. He takes his luggage out of the trunk and I can see him waving in the rear view mirror. I secretly fear that he might still be standing in the same place the next day when I do my weekend shopping in Sauerlach.

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At censhare everything revolves around exchanging information. We are involved in communication theory, virtual communities, social media, the translation of language, semantics, semiotics and syntax. With interlinking, networking and the small-world hypothesis. We read about universal languages, lemmas, synonyms, periphrases, metaphors, Lullian Cabbalistic, combinatorics, Wilkens’ hypertext and Leibniz libraries. We know how to transmit data from A to B, automatically transform them the interpret the OSI layer model.

But I have rarely learned so much about communication than from the three silent hours I spent with the man from China on the train and in the car from Stuttgart to Sauerlach. And whose name was presumably Nin.

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