Comic relief

Five-year-old Miss Fancy Pants and her mom came over today. MFP speaks pretty good English, her mom speaks almost none. MFP sent me into shock when she told me she knows a boy who ate dog sh**. I wasn't sure I heard right so I asked her what she meant. She said the boy ate "ice-cream-mint." Took me a minute to figure out she meant excrement. I don't think I knew that word when I was 5-years-old. I think she learned most of her English from her dad, which in her case turned out to be a dangerous thing. She has no clue that the first vocabulary word is a crude one.

Not five minutes earlier, I had received a message from a young Christian man who said "D*** it, I can't make it to the study tonight due to work responsibilities!" I don't think he knows that it is not really all that appropriate to use that phrase, especially in the context of the event he was discussing. He probably heard it on some American movie and thinks it is as pure and innocent as saying "doggone it."

Speaking a foreign language can be a tricky thing! I approach it with much fear and trembling myself.

I've been there, dude

The other day a Chinese college professor was talking to me in English. He's not a believer, but he said he attends church sometimes. He told me he's familiar with the "four gossips" -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

I kept a straight face. I'm pretty sure I've discussed the "four photocopies" before, and I trust they were polite enough to keep a straight face when I did so.

Worth my time

China's Ministry of Education estimates that 30 percent of Chinese people living in China don't speak Mandarin, the official language. They speak other languages or dialects. And the lady above? She's definitely one of the 30 percent.

I met her in a park. I think she told me her life story. Poor lady was so desperate to talk to someone that she didn't seem to care that I didn't understand. (I told her I didn't understand, but she is hard of hearing and so maybe she didn't catch that part.) I just smiled and looked sympathetic when her tone seemed to call for it. I think it did her good.

I don't know her story, but I know she's created by God. That makes her worth my time.

Let's give them something to talk about

Chinese person A: Nah, let's not get a foreigner or even a Chinese English major to translate our sign for us. It will probably cost too much. Besides, I've got a dictionary.

Chinese person B: Okay! Look up the word for short skirt.

Chinese person A: Got it! Tutu!

Chinese person B: Haha! This is easy. Only stupid people would pay for a translator.

Indeed. Why pay when this way is sooooooo much more fun!

(The green sign says, in Chinese translated into English: "Entry forbidden to those wearing shorts, skirts and other unsuitable clothing." Oddly, they didn't enforce it. Lots of male tourists were wearing knee-length shorts. In Chinese culture, wearing shorts in public is basically improper. Shorts are for fishermen and little boys, they say.)

Buddhists in Taiwan and Paris should go to this back alley in Beijing to get their garb. There was no indication as to where Buddhists from other countries might go for their garb ... or even if Buddhists from other countries are even expected to have garb. 

Honestly, it's not my problem.

And now you know...

Some people in western countries, like America, wonder when the Chinese will ever get around to changing from their ancient Chinese characters to Romanized characters like we use in English. 

Might as well give it up, because that's probably never going to happen.

See this paragraph written in Chinese characters?

Now look at it when it is written in the Roman alphabet (which in China is called "pinyin"):

"Shi shi shi shi shi shi, shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi. Shi shi shi shi shi shi shi shi shi. Shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi. Shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi. Shi shi shi shi shi, shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi shi. Shi shi shi shi shi shi, shi shi shi. Shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi shi. Shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi shi shi shi. Shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi. Shi shi shi shi."

The Chinese characters have meaning. If you know Chinese you can read the paragraph and know the story it tells. By reading the Roman type, though, you know nothing.

In case you care, in English, the paragraph says this:

"A poet named Shi lived in a stone house and liked to eat lion flesh and he vowed to eat ten of them. He used to go to the market in search of lions and one day chanced to see ten of them there. Shi killed the lions with arrows and picked up their bodies carrying them back to his stone house. His house was dripping with water so he requested that his servants proceed to dry it. Then he began to try to eat the bodies of the ten lions. It was only then he realized that these were in fact ten lions made of stone. Try to explain the riddle."

One more note. If you plan to tell this story to anyone, it may help to know that the pronunciation of "shi" is something like "sure."

Leader of the pack

There is a vicious dog in the neighborhood. She is not very big, but she is mean, baring her teeth and growling like she wants to kill someone. I think Mimi and I are on her menu.


Unfortunately, we ran across the little brown mutt yesterday. She came running over a hill and was MAD, about to take a bite out of one of us. I swooped Mimi into my arms to protect her, kind of like this:

(Apparently this is common behavior for dog owners. It looks somewhat less silly when I do it though, because Mimi's no bigger than a baby.)


With Mimi slung over my shoulder like a burping baby, and loaded with all the information that I saw on National Geographic's "Dog Whisperer" TV show this past Sunday, I stood my ground, pointed my finger at the mean brown dog, and in my best teacher's voice told that dog to cut it out and go home.


After a minute or two of this, the dog tucked her mean teeth back inside her mouth and seemed to calm down, but didn't go away. My goal was to send that dog packing, back to her home (her unattentive master lives in my apartment complex). I was going to win this battle.


I continued wagging my index finger at her, telling her in English to go away and leave us alone, when all of a sudden a Chinese man, a neighbor, walked up with the most incredulous look on his face. He looked at the mean dog, then he looked at me and said, "She understands English???!!"


It felt like I had cotton in my ears, because surely he didn't just ask that. He knew the mean brown dog was not my dog and that we were having an unfriendly standoff.


"Huh?" I asked.


"Does that dog know English?" he wanted to know.


All sorts of inappropriate answers swam through my mind. 'Yes, I hold a weekend class for all the dogs in the neighborhood.' Or maybe some response like, 'Yes, dogs are bilingual, didn't you know?'


But I didn't want to make him feel bad, because he was dead serious. He was probably also feeling really defeated, thinking these dogs knew more English than his own child. So I broke it to him gently and explained that the neighbor's dog doesn't know English, only knows my meaning by my tone of voice. 


He nodded like he kind of understood, but as he walked away, I think he still thought I had taught English to the dogs in the neighborhood. I'm pretty sure he was wondering why I would bother to stand there and talk to the dog in English if the dog didn't understand English anyway. He found the whole scenario rather perplexing. I guess they don't talk to dogs in this country.


After the neighbor had gone, I pointed to the mean dog, told her one more time to go home, and she tucked her tail and went back home over the hill.


National Geographic will probably be calling soon.


_______
Footnotes:
1. The photo is random. I don't know the person or the dog in the photo.
2. Mimi understands basic commands in both English and Chinese, because she hears them all the time. She doesn't speak any languages though, thanks be to the Creator. :-)
3. I would call animal control on this dog and owner, but the dog looks like she just had pups, so that would be mean of me to call her in right now. She was mean way before she ever had pups though, so it is not just the protective instinct kicking in.
4. Living overseas is pretty doggone interesting.