In preparation for their trip to the Beijing Olympics, a team of University Centre “César Ritz” hospitality students began learning Mandarin Chinese. They will represent Switzerland at the House of Switzerland venue at the Games.

After the team was selected in March, Mandarin lessons were set up for the students in Brig. Emily, Jonathan and Matthew were in charge of letting us in on some of the seemingly countless secrets of their language. It proved to be quite a challenge at first and we tried their patience a bit.

Some of us learned quickly, like Manuel, who was dubbed a reincarnated emperor from the Ming dynasty because of his near-perfect pronunciation. Others of us, like me, are still struggling to use the right tones.

We have come a long way from the basics of “How are you?” and “One, two three…” Now, not only can each and every one of us order our Beijing roast duck and beer or red wine, we can also explain to the taxi driver how to get us back to the House of Switzerland after dinner. We will survive (at least better than the poor old duck)!