I haven’t mentioned my “girlfriend” in a long time. This is not only because I don’t like to talk about certain aspects of my private life here; it’s also because I’m not sure what to call her anymore. This is all due to the peculiar features of getting married in China.
You see, we are already legally married, but we have not yet had a “proper wedding.” To her and her family, that means a proper Chinese wedding banquet. To …
“The back of your head is so round. Ours aren’t, you know. Ours are usually pretty flat in back. You foreigners have sort of a weird bulge back there.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s where we keep our abilities to form lines, obey traffic rules, and not spit everywhere.”
She promptly socked me.…
While home my sister took me to see some stand up comedy here in Tampa. Two of the comedians were John Heffron and Tracy Ashley. We had a good time. The next day I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone, telling her what I’d been doing, and I wanted to tell her that I went to see stand up comedy. But I completely did not know how to say “stand up comedy!” I went into a long-winded …
祝大家复活节快乐！ (I wish you all a happy Easter!)
(Image found on Japancast.)
P.S. And a very happy birthday to a very special someone…
P.P.S. I don’t believe in any “war on Easter,” but as a Catholic I do believe that Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus and not chocolate bunnies. Still, I find this kind of thing funny.…
On Tuesday I got a morning telephone call. I was still sleeping at the time, so what I was about to hear didn’t make much sense to me. I was told I was supposed to come pick up some information that I needed. “Who are you?” I asked. “This is the blah blah blah Center,” she told me. Never heard of it.
“What information is this?” I asked. “Why do I need it?”
“Have you bought stock?” she replied.
“No.”…
I’d been telling my girlfriend that we’d do karaoke sometime soon ever since Valentine’s Day, and last night I finally made good on that promise. We showed up at “PartyWorld” (AKA 錢櫃) at 11:45pm, and, thrifty young souls that we are, waited around for fifteen minutes for the hourly rate to drop from 158rmb to 58rmb.
I, of course, abhor karaoke. I can’t sing, and I don’t particular enjoy proving that to the world, even when “the world” in …
I’ve been looking forward to seeing the new movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I read (or was read) all those books when I was in third and fourth grade, and enjoyed them immensely. I don’t remember them very well, so I was looking forward to rediscovering some of that feeling when I saw the movies.
I watched the movie with my girlfriend, who is Chinese. She was not familiar with the stories, and was not raised in …
Shortly after I moved to Shanghai in early 2004 I decided to hire an ayi (housekeeper/maid) to do some cooking and cleaning. (Her last name was Zhou, so I’ll call her “Zhou Ayi.”) I really enjoyed having a cook, and I wasn’t shy about expressing my great satisfaction with Zhou Ayi. Things were great for a while.
Over time, our relationship worsened. I find it difficult to explain exactly how or why, but I’ll try.…
Recently I set up the little artificial Christmas tree my girlfriend bought for my last year. When I went to put the Christmas lights on it, I found that one of the wires had come disconnected from the switchbox. I probably wouldn’t be able to fix it without a soldering iron. Since I didn’t have time to get new Christmas lights, I just left the tree plain.
The next day my ayi came over and I pointed out the Christmas …
Kakis, a regular commenter on Talk Talk China, recently left this one:
I always love to speak Chinese to laowais, in fact, I am really good at teaching, be it language or Engineering stuff.a lot of laowais like the way I teach them how to pronounce ’si & shi; zhan & zhang; lan & nan;….’. But the thing is, laowais like to show off their Chinese whenever they are in the meeting or some conferences. they think their
…
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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