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Published: February 4th 2007
There are a couple things that I currently do not know how to say in English. If you know how to say these things please let me know. First is something the Chinese call "ma la". "La" means "spicy" so it is a type of spicy. But instead of being hot spicy this is a type of spicy that makes your mouth numb. Second is what the Chinese call "bai ming nian" literally "white next year" which makes absolutely no sense. The closest I can come to this in English is the anniversary of your Chinese animal sign. So one has a "bai ming nian" every twelve years when the year is the same as the sign you were born in. Next year is my "bai ming nian" as I was born in the year of the pig and 2008 is also the year of the pig, I will be 24 years old. If you know how to say these two in English please let me know.
So I was just having a conversation with a Chinese student in English and she caught me muttering to myself "How to say?" when I didn't know how to explain something. Yes, me speak 'em English.
I have recently discovered that Asia is pretty much all the same in some senses. If you don't watch your back, and pay attention to how you walk and talk you can really get messed up. The majority of Asians believe that white people are walking dollar bill carrying prostitutes. Therefore we can really get messed up a lot if we don't be careful and just do whatever we want to. Some people are stupid enough to think we can go on acting like westerners here.
I think it's a bit strange here the difference between friend and customer. I've run into this problem multiple times with the L-Salon and was just talking about it with one of my students. There is really no such thing as a customer who is your friend. You are either a friend or a customer. And if you are a friend in the position of a customer you are not nearly as important as the customers who don't know the employees at all. So for example if I'm selling tea and I have two customers at once - one who is my friend and one who isn't I will more than likely completely ignore my friend and not pay any attention to them at all until the customer who I don't know leaves. This is expected behavior.
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Dad
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Idioms
All languages have "idioms" that don't translate from one language to another. Sometimes it is a group of words that, when combined, have a completely unique meaning; other times, it is a word, such as "cool" that is currently "in vogue", but does not really connect with its original meaning. The derivations of these words are sometimes known; othertimes, not... Dad