Chinglish

When we get together with our group, we all like to talk about funny things people say to us. I just thought I would throw a few out there for ya.

 

Chinese English teacher to American English teacher at lunch: "According to my imagination, we would all sit together and drink beer!" Man, we love to say 'according to my imagination' now.

 

Mr. Beard (our Chinese English teacher) to Matt at lunch: "It's is acceptable for Krish-tal to not drink beer, but for you Ma-shoe, it is UNACCEPTABLE! You must learn to drink!"

 

Chinese English teacher talking about their school: "This school is number 3 in all of Hunan... Maybe, number 2... Maybe, number 1!"

 

A student in my class: My English name is Hanver!

me: Okaaaay, Hamburger? (they are crazy hard to understand sometimes)

Hanver: No! H-A-N-V-E-R! I created it myself, it is 'handsome' and 'clever' combined!

(usually I don't allow such strange names, but I couldn't argue with that logic! Plus, it was very American to just create his own name I think.)

 

Mr. Beard finishing a telephone call: "That is all, bye-bye." Click

 

Mr. Beard, also on the phone with Matt:

Mr. Beard: The headmaster would like to invite you to dinner.

Matt: Okay, what time?

Mr. Beard: Await my call.

Click

 

I love it. I also have noticed that they always will try to write English things on products (kinda like we write things in French on hair products to lead the consumers of America to believe that French people use this product) and I still try to make sense of their translations, like I am just reading them wrong or something. For example, our water cooler says: Create utilitarian life's beauty. I may just stink at English, but that makes zero sense, but of course it takes me reading it about five times to remember I am in China, and nothing makes sense.

 

Well, that is all for tonight. We are about to call into our Branch to have a special fireside with Elder Oaks! He is in China and is speaking to just our Branch! It's really cool (especially coming from Land of the LDS) to know that Church Headquarters TOTALLY knows about our Branch. We have the biggest one in the whole world (land mass wise) because it includes all the members that are in China that are not living in Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong (where they have enough members for branches). Pretty spiffy eh? It's really neat.

 

You know what else is awesome? We (foreigners) are called ex-patriots. I think that sounds pretty cool. I just know that because ex-patriots are not allowed to meet with Chinese Nationals even if they are members, which is too bad but I just feel lucky that we are allowed to meet!