Chinglish

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I finally added my first picture to the website. I will hopefully be able to add more very shortly. I also rearranged my journal entries as they were out of order. Today I got most of my classes organized for this weekend so I won't have to do all of my lesson planning tomorrow. Also I met with Jason this afternoon. We went out to lunch and he taught me some Chinese cuss words (although he said not to tell anyone that he taught them to me). He also came over to my apartment and showed me how to use my washing machine (finally!). Turns out I can't fit the thing in my bathroom so I have to do it in my kitchen and since there's no drain in my kitchen I have to use my bucket to drain the thing. But now I'm happy, all I have to do is buy some washing detergent and clean my clothes! It's funny how something like that sounds so complicated but yet is and should be so easy.

Over the time we have spent here there is not a single foreign teachers who has not come into contact with some form of "Chinglish". What is Chinglish? It is the literal translation of a Chinese phrase into English thus making it sound very strange, perverted or not making sense at all. While I was out with Cat spending time with Allen, Lucia and Jenny we had dinner together and during dinner Allen turned to me with a very straight look on his face and said "Do me". My reaction was "Excuse me, what?" He said it again and I told him never to say that again and asked him what he was trying to say. He said that he had been watching the tv show Friends and they had translated "Do me" as in "Follow me" or "Do after me" or "Imitate me" (in Chinese) so he just used that line "Do me" from the tv show. I told him to tell Cat what he just said and she burst out laughing. She explained to him what he had said in English and I wasn't looking at him but if I had been looking at him his face would have been white as a ghost. He apologized like 50 times, all the while we explained to him that it was okay and that we were sure we said some funny things in Chinese sometimes too.

Before Craig came to China he was talking to his friend Sunny on-line and she said to him "Do you want a cocklick?" Unfortunately he was in the middle of eating and spewed his noodles all over the computer screen. He composed himself and asked what she had said and then asked her to type it in. She typed "Do you want a chocolate?" He told her how to pronounce the word "chocolate" but never got the guts up to explain to her what she had actually said.

When I was grading my papers the other night I found another one. One of my students had used the word "intercourse" in a context when she should have used "social encounter" or "social intercourse". The phrase sure sounded funny and all of the foreign teachers got a good laugh out of it.

These Chinglish phrases are everywhere. Many times they don't make any sense at all. The first time I went to an ATM I did it in English and it apparently had asked me if I wanted a receipt but it asked me "want an appliance" (or something like that). I of course didn't understand anything and said no. I was with Jason at the time and when the machine didn't give me a receipt we both went around the bank asking for a receipt and why it didn't give us one and then discovered that I had said I didn't want one. Very confusing. Shirts have Chinglish phrases on them and many of them make absolutely no sense at all, besides being slightly humorous.

Health status: I woke up today feeling very dizzy. I knew I was walking in a straight line but the room was spinning around me and the floor felt like it was moving. My nose was running all night last night and I have a bit of a sore throat. I think I'm coming down with a cold (most of the other foreign teachers have had it now).

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Photos

Teacher's Office
This is Julia and Lucy sitting in the teacher's office at my school.

Typical Classroom
This is the typical Rockies classroom that I always work in. The red thing on the chalkboard is an eraser attached by magnets. Our typical chalkboard eraser.