The Inevitable Post about Learning Chinese

I've now been living in Shanghai for six months, and it's inevitable that I write about learning the language.  Even before coming to China, I knew that not being able to really speak Mandarin but looking Chinese would be a hurdle, and I was right -- every day is a challenge when I communicate with people who look at me as if I have ten heads.  People really just don't seem to understand that it's possible to be Chinese but not speak the language.  I posted this video in a post I wrote before actually arriving in Shanghai, and it can't be stressed enough how true it is (except substitute Japanese for Chinese), even if the video presents the situation in an amusing light: