Through the eyes of another

I thought I'd share some snippets from my friends' blogs who are in the BYUI group in China. I have a really bad memory, so I fail to mention a lot of the funny stories and situations we run into. So here are a few as told by...

Adam:

"Before arriving at Carrefour that afternoon, the idea of buying a pet crab had never crossed our minds. It was just one of those decisions you make at the spur of the moment. The salesman was rather confused when I asked him what I should feed it. Haha He wasn’t overly helpful. Minutes later we were walking out of Carrefour with a live crab in a plastic bag.

It wasn’t long before the word got around about our pet, and everyone wanted to see our crab scuttle across the shower floor and blow bubbles from his mouth. I don’t think any crab has ever been more loved. I particularly remember the day our cleaning lady first found out we had a crab. Coming back to my room after class I heard her call out to me from up the hall:

Lady: Hey! What’s that crab doing in your bathroom?! It scared me half to death this morning! You know you’re not allowed to have pets!
Me: That’s not a pet… that’s our dinner.
Lady: Dinner?! And how are you planning to cook that?! (We don’t have stoves or ovens in our dorms.)
……... (Responding with a straight face)
Me: Microwave.
Lady: Microwave!? You’re going to cook it in the microwave!?
Me: What can I say? I like my seafood to be fresh."

"A dozen street vendors have set up carts outside the gates of our school, selling a variety of different Chinese xiaochi. I don’t really notice as much anymore, but sometimes I just have to question how sanitary the food we are eating really is. These people cooking our food don’t wear gloves or hairnets like you would see in the United States. Sometimes I just want to ask if they wash their hands or utensil with soap? How long has that been sitting out for? Is that cigarette ash floating in my soup? But then again, sometimes it's better not to know...

I’m to the point that I won’t eat anything that I haven’t seen cooked. While waiting for our sandwich today, we watched as the man pulled raw chicken out of a plastic grocery bag hanging from the side of his cart and tossed it into the grease. (He had no refrigeration, not even a cooler.) Turning to Josh: "Should that worry me? Yeah, probably. Does it worry me? A little. Having seen that, will I still be back her for lunch tomorrow? Yup...""

Tina:

"So we’ll start out with this one. Once upon a time, Josh was in the Subway, chatting away with some random guy, and this is about how the conversation mishap ended up sounding when translated from Chinese:

Josh: So what’s your favorite food?
Random man on the subway: I like seafood.
Josh: Huh? What’s that?
Random man: (Looking astounded) It’s food from the sea.
Josh: I don’t know what that is.
--Awkward pause--
Josh: Well, this is our stop. We’ll see you later!"

"Once upon a time, Josh was leaning against the accordion-like connection in the center of an extra-long bus. There was a sign right above him that read, in characters, DO NOT SIT. The bus turns a corner and, of course, he got pinched. He jumped up, “ai-yah!” and Adam commented to the man sitting next to him, nodding toward Josh, “he’s French.”

“Ohhhh,” the Chinese man nodded, as if everything suddenly made sense.
I’m thinking: What?"

"There’s this really good xiaochi where we like to get baozi and soup. Their hundun tang, dumpling soup, is tebie hao,especially good. One night, after checking with Adam to find out how to say ‘soup,’ he walked up to the lady and asked for “jiaozi tong” instead of asking for “jiaozi tang.”

“Excuse me, I want a bowl of pain.”"

"Sometimes we’ve got some crazy Chinglish things that pop out in our conversations. Here are a few quick ones:

Adam: “How lei are you?”
Various people: “Let’s go chi some fan.”
Adam: “Tomorrow is your birthday is tomorrow?” (mixing up word order but realizing it halfway through the sentence—and trying to fix it)
Josh: “I was kai wan xiao-ing.”
Brother Paul: “Don’t go xiexie-ing all over the place.”
Various people: “Listen. My duzi isn’t happy. Laduzi.”
Me: “I really like your de thoughts on that.” (mixing up how to make a word possessive)
Various People: “Let’s shang this che.”
Dana: “I went with MaiSee [to eat] but she qingke-ed.”
Adam: “She’s such a da mafang. You know what I’m saying?”
Adam and Josh: “Is it easier to bao a jiaozi or to jiaosomeone to bao a baozi?”"

(at the Temple of Heaven) "We moved on to the last area, which is comprised of three rings. There was a large, outer, circular court, a level of steps and a second, circular court, and the top circular court is where most of the tourists were gathering. Adam and I went straight to the top and started doing the polka through the crowd. Then we moved to the second ring and taught everyone else in our group how to polka (the tourists all leaned against the railings from the top ring and watched).

Yeah, I’m that cool. I’ve done the polka at the Temple of Heaven."

Abby:

"It’s funny how people perceive Americans. Adam was talking to a Chinese guy on the subway, and the Chinese guy asked, “In America, does everyone carry around guns all the time?” Adam was like, “What?” The guy continued to explain that’s what they see on American TV shows so he thought that all American’s carry guns with them everywhere they go.

We asked the Korean’s in our class what the English language sounded like to them when they hear American’s talking to each other. They said that we always sound REALLY excited!"

"So, there I was talking to this guy on the subway. He had kind of a strong accent that was hard to understand. My friend Adam, who served a mission in Taiwan, Chinese speaking, was listening to my conversation to see how well I would do on my own. He later told me what the translation was of our conversation and what the guy said to me. This how it went. We will call the guy on the subway “Joe.”

Me: Have you eaten Beijing Duck? (Beijing is famous for their duck)

Joe: Oh, yeah it’s really good.

Me: Do you like it?

Joe: Yeah, have you tried it?

Me: I like it.

Joe: But have you tried it?

Me: I like it.

Joe: Ok, so you’ve tried it?

Me: (I just shook my head at this point, because I had no idea why he kept asking me what I thought was, “Do you like it?” And I also realized that I didn’t know why I was telling him that I liked it, because I actually haven’t even tried it. We got to our stop, and Adam had told me that he wasn’t asking me if I liked it.)"

"This conversation took place with Josh and a Chinese guy on the subway, but Adam and I were listening. We’ll call the guy he was talking to “Ted.” So Ted and Josh were talking for a short time and Josh was able to carry on a conversation with him pretty well, and then…

Ted: Ni shuo han yu shuo de hen hao. (Your Chinese is very good)

Josh: huh?

Ted: Ni shuo han yu shuo de hen hao. (Your Chinese is very good)

Josh: Wo ting bu dong. (I don’t understand)"

"Yesterday I tried to start up a conversation with a guy, and I didn't understand what he said back to me. I turned to my friend Tina and said, “Do you know what he just said?” She said, “Yeah, he said,“You shouldn't be talking to me in Chinese, because you have no idea what I am saying back.” Yep, I guess he was slightly right about that one."