Shh! Please don’t tell anyone, but in Chineseyou don’t say„shhhh“ at all. Unpleasant mutterings in the cinema, chattering fellow students on the back bench, mewling cultural philistines in the art exhibition – in China these are followed by an energetic „Xxxu! – spoken with a strong grating sound like the German „(i)ch“ and with a proper rounding of the lips, as if one wanted to pronounce an „ü“. (Short reading pause at this point, you are probably trying it out).