Tag Archives: Humor

Life in China ~ a Party v. the Party

10 Apr

LMAO!

I was asking my students on our WeChat group (like a Group Chat) if they had class Monday night so we can schedule our exams.

D quickly replied “No, I have a party class.” 0_0

Party class?  Say what!?!  And I wasn’t invited?  How rude!

The group erupted with 63+ Chinese-language messages in a matter of minutes as  the class leader started with “What the HE** is a party class.” Another “ooh, class on how to dance.” “Let’s Party!” “Can I come?” “Do you get to drink?” Lots and lots of laughing pictures and emoticons.

At the same time a whole line of students with”I don’t think the teacher will understand.” “Oh, that’s a bad translation.” “The teacher is going to think you want to go party.” “This is very bad.” “You shouldn’t say that. You cannot trust translation my dear.” “Don’t you know to stop and check every three words?  D replies again–“Oh, no! Now I think the teacher will misunderstand me!” (Horror Face).

At which point, the whole group started posting a series of Chinese phrases that have really bad English translations.  Like “My father-in-law isn’t coming” which translates as “The father-in-law will not be coming to my bed.” It was bad 😛 

My response: “Is that a class party? Party during class? Class about how to party?” This sounds fun and now I’m sad I wasn’t invited to the party lesson! 😦 😦 😦 ”  LOL

Finally, one of them came back with a screen capture of the definition and translation in the Chinese-English dictionary of “Communist Party”–“It’s this one teacher, not a “party class” it’s THE Party class.”  Ah! Makes Much More Sense. . . . And a much better reason for not being able to make the Exam on time! 😛

 

Perfect For This Season

1 Apr

Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.

**Jose Maria de Queiroz

Are You Sure It’s Not Worse

28 Mar

The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.

**Emma Bombeck

Not Good

23 Mar

Mine is Iassannn (a little consonant heavy 😛 )–I sound like a sleezy dragon, hissing and dragging out my letters. 

 

 

Life in China ~ Bring It (Managerial Econ Style)

22 Mar

😛 I am teaching a class of students whose English is particularly bad, but I had them last semester too and we have been moving along. It takes translating every couple of words (money, war, economy, market, cash, coin, card) to communicate, but we were happy with our steady if slow pace 🙂 

Then Today, I had two new students join the class from Int’l Trade 1 (the best students, include one who has excellent English). At the beginning, I asked the students to translate one of the words as usual. Normally it takes us a bit to look it up and figure out a Chinglish version. Now, immediately the new boy spits out verbatim the precise 3 sentence long definition from the textbook by memory. 0_0 It was the funniest thing. The entire class stopped, turned and stared at him. One girl threw up her hands, another started groaning. The entire group almost in unison went “ooooohhhhhh” and one actually WHIMPERED. LOL. He jerked back and looked around. After that he figured out pretty quick the others weren’t at that level. 🙂 Seriously, we’re working at “this is called demand” level and he’s off on QD = a + bP + cT + . . . . level. Boom. . . mic dropped, bar raised.

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Sad, but Valid

21 Mar

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The Prophesied Hero Cat

18 Mar

Happy St. Patrick’s Day (From China)

17 Mar

I was the only foreign teacher initially dressed up for St. Patrick’s Day today! Such a tragedy! I, looking so awesome, of course promptly shamed a couple people into going back and adding some green to their wardrobe.  (ehm, Andre –better a late green than never). . .

Having class today, I asked my students if they knew what holiday it was. They didn’t (another great sorrow of my life), so I brought up pictures of the Parades for them to see and told them about the leprechauns and the green Chicago river.  🙂 

I finished by letting them know that if they didn’t hurry home and add some green themselves, it was perfectly likely they might get some pinching. Their eyes went so wide. 0_0 It was hilarious. Made my day!

So happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

 

 

 

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Is It Bigger on the Inside?

16 Mar

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Yes, that is me

15 Mar