You Don't Need Two Hands To Count To Ten

I spent most of my twenties living it up in China. I studied abroad there at twenty-one and then went back at twenty-five to work. I stayed in China until I turned thirty-one.

Those years helped me learn more about myself than I would've learned had I stayed in the States. I would've never learned how independent I could be if I never went abroad. I learned how to find high-quality VPNs. I don't think I would've learned how to be a woman either. Because of my years there, I know I can do anything I set my mind to. It's like China turned into my Personal Legend.

In my first week of working in Beijing, I learned one of the coolest skills anyone's ever taught me. It's possible to count to ten with one hand!

I know what you're thinking. It sounds crazy. We don't have ten fingers on our hands, so how is it possible? Do you cheat and write the letters on your fingers, or is there something else?

In China, people use hand signals for numbers. Counting from one to five is no different in China than it is in the West. But when you want to go from six to ten, that's when you work magic with your fingers!

How to count to ten on one hand

As I mentioned above, going from one to five isn't any different than you'd expect. For six through ten, I provided pictures!

I like to call this one the surfer. Six in Chinese is liu. (pronounced Lee-oh). In the U.S., this same hand gesture means "Hang loose." Hang loose = liu.

It's a stretch connecting the two, so if you can't remember it, think of the stereotypical surfer hence why I call it the surfer.

Seven in Chinese is qi. (Pronounced chee) The way you position your fingers reminds me of a bird, so I call this one the bird. If you're a more audio person, you can remember the number by what a bird says. "Cheep-cheep!" Cheep = qi.

Eight in Chinese is ba, like what a sheep says. For obvious reasons, I call this the gun. I don't have a way to match a sound-effect with ba since bang and ba don't sound similar.

Nine in Chinese is jiu. (Pronounced Jee-oh). I call this one the claw. It reminds me of Liar Liar's scene where Cary Elwes tries to impress Jim Carrey's son by making his own version of The Claw. It's the same hand gesture as what Elwes used in the movie. Unfortunately, I don't have a word to match with this one either. That stopped after seven.

Number ten in Chinese is shi. It's pronounced how it looks. Ten has two different gestures. The first one, pictured above, I haven't put a clever name to yet. All I can think of is hope with it.

I'm not sure how common the crossed fingers gesture is, though. There have been times I used it in Beijing, and the locals looked at me, confused. Another gesture I've seen is people making a fist, and that counts as ten. Some of my co-teachers taught me the first for ten.

What happens when you want to count higher?

When you want to show higher numbers, you have to use two hands. There isn't any going around it after that point. Your left hand will show any number in the tens place, and your right takes over any number in the one's place. It makes it easier to show numbers when in crowded areas or when interacting with language barriers.

Let's say you want to show the number twenty-three. Your left hand has the two, and your right hand has the three.

Be careful with this new party trick! As far as I know, it doesn't go any farther than ninety-nine. If someone out there knows what happens after that, I'd love to meet them.

Living abroad is hard when you don't know the language. This trick will help you in China.

Cities like Beijing and Shanghai are like a cultural melting pot in China. Foreign ex-pats from all over the world come to these cities for work. People from smaller cities and rural areas come over for a chance to make a better life for themselves and their families.

With all of these different backgrounds coming into the bigger cities, it's easy to misunderstand one another. Locals don't always speak the same Chinese dialect. If any foreigner knows the language, they'll know the Beijing dialect. Not every Chinese speaker knows the Beijing dialect.

I came to China knowing some of the languages already. Even with my knowledge, I'd still get overwhelmed with the number of people speaking it to me. Studying it in a classroom is one thing. Going to China and immersing myself is another. Learning the number signs helped me adjust to speaking only Chinese when I leave my apartment.

Final thought

When people hear I can count to ten, on one hand, they act shocked. Yet, I can never tell if they're really surprised or not. Back in the States, I still use the same hand gestures when counting things out in my head. It makes it easier to do it on one hand than stop what I'm doing to use both.

China gets a lot of flack for being such a weird country. Without spending time there, I would've never been able to learn one of the most useful skills I ever learned.