After That, I Think We All Need A Little Pick-Me-Up

And I think a few emails from my qin.ai.de Zhong Han will do the trick

1: how was in Newyork? i backed to shanghai from shenzhen..its a good trip .get some good pictures ,and you ? why i cant see your pictures and your wall ? did you blog me ? (note: she meant block, but what a hilariously ironic misspelling!)

2: i never blog you …thats strange !

3: whats wrong with our facebooks ? i cant see your wall and your albums

4: yes ,,,,weird …..i think your face is ill …you’d better ask doctor to have a look at your sick facebook…..

The Second Funniest Thing I Heard Today

My friend Hanlon sent me this future classic:

What is a Chinese women’s favorite day?

Erection day!

Texting 101

As it snowed in Megève for the first time a few days ago, I was reminded of the extremely aggravating compulsion of Chinese youths to text one another with weather updates. The day of the first snow in Huangdao, I received no less than ten text messages. Most of them were from students, informing me that it was snowing and that I should wear more clothes thusly. Thank God they did, because I’m blind, completely oblivious and had no idea that snow was cold. Those weren’t even the bad ones. Given my students’ propensity for exercises in inane poetry, its no surprise that a few students utilized the first snowfall as inspiration for a few quixotic lines. One compared my teaching style to flawless snowflakes. She was in my Friday morning class, where I regularly experimented with a new teaching style called “hungover.” It consisted mostly of movies. Another student decided this would be an appropriate time to make some joke in Chinese about her being pregnant and me being the father (which would’ve been rather difficult because I didn’t go near any of my students’ ovaries). Psyyychoooo. The only one that didn’t seem to bother me was Wang’s (translated, roughly) “It’s snowing, let’s make out” text.

More Zhong Han funtime!

-Do you know what they call China’s system of internet censorship? The Great Firewall of China. Ha! To prevent the spread of dissident rhetoric, the Chinese government has decided to block users from accessing wordpress.com webpages. That means someone can’t read what I write about her!

-Speaking of China’s preeminent authority on English colloquialisms, I was fortunate enough to receive SEVEN Facebook messages from Zhong Han this week. Ready?

#1: hey , man how is it going ? where are you now ? still at home ? im gonna open a shop with my fds in shanghai ! maybe open it in March! we are preparing now ! so got everything messy and busy now ….

r u dissapeared ? didnt meet you on line for ages ! so wired !

#2: my profile picture is my heart shape Fried ice cream ! does it look beautiful?

#3 hey !!!turn out ! are you died of fat ?

i think so …if you are keep fatter and fatter …

#4 dead dead dead faaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttty!

#5 sean…seriously ! are you still alive ?

btw tell Bush ! i support Calinton’s wife to be American President !

#6 i love America before …now i love Australia ….there are lots nice and cute guys in that beautiful country !

i changed a lot ! (she didn’t go to Australia but must have seen a picture or something.)

#7 m planning to go to Australia ,if everything goes well .iv no that much holiday or free time for travelling now .yeah,,they are simple.and easy going…i like simple guys …

spring festival is coming in 2 days ,and its small chinese new year now in shanghai …so its nice to see your sms in the morning …miss you,dude !
im looking forward to your beautiful pictures !

as for ice cream shop,everything is stoped in china .coz the festival …so i will start to run it after spring festival …..and our machine will get to shanghai soon from Singapore .so maybe set up in March ,if everything goes well .
if i need investor i will consider you firstly . i will try the shanghai market fisrt ,if it sells well ….i will open another brunch shops in other areas ,maybe i need capital to set up…i will let you know …in this way you could low your investing venture ! only one shop i think i could afford it ! and just try it firstly ! anyway thanx a lot ///and im happy you are interested in our business project!

we also have another good project ….we are talking right now …anyway ,everything will start after that festival.

so you wont work in china later ,i thought i could see your cute big face in Feb! hahaha ……(kidding ) im happy you are very well!

looking forward to see you in summer !

Yama
btw— i love romantic place and guys !

Btw: I sent her ONE message during this time. (If she can call me fat, I can make fun of her English).

- So, it turns out Zhong Han has become quite the entrepreneur: she has started her own fried ice cream stand! Facebook stalker extraordinaire Patrick McNally actually informed me before Han Han did with this exceptional message: “how do you feel about being the ex-boyfriend of one of shanghai’s leading fried ice cream vendors? you really missed the boat on that one. “ If she’ll produce a competent business plan, I’d actually consider investing in her product: not to receive a potential cash windfall (though that would be nice), but to receive a constant stream of hilarious, business-related messages. Contractually I would stipulate that Zhong Han has to email me a certain number of times a month. And when her business inevitably goes bankrupt, it will totally have been worth it for the amount of joy it will have brought to me and readers of the brog everywhere.

What Up My Nei.ge?

A few weeks ago, while at our neighborhood Irish pub, the topic of Chinese grammar came up in conversation (booooooooooooring, but stick with me for a second). Anyone who is familiar with Mandarin knows there’s a phrase, nei.ge or 那個, that sounds just like the ‘n-bomb,’ and whenever you speak Chinese in America, problems arise as a result. The reason is because this phrase takes on the meaning of ‘like,’ not as in an expression of admiring something, but in the placeholder sense: the extremely aggravating , seemingly ubiquitous teenybopper/Justin Leone sense (J gets a free pass though because anyone who is smarter than me can make up their own grammar rules). Well, for those of us who suck at Chinese, we have to use the phrase about three times a sentence. As I’m telling this story, given that my voice tends to carry, it would appear to the casual eavesdropper that I was yelling “nigga!” over and over again. The people at my table were mortified. Most concealed their faces,as if feigning sleep, while the Ogre actually got up from the table so as to not be associated with this uncouth racist! Fortunately, this pub could be the whitest in America, and because I have Three Six Mafia on my Ipod, I qualified as top 10 blackest people in the bar, so the chances of getting my ass kicked were slim. I was having trouble understanding why my friends were so perturbed by a simple Chinese grammar lesson, but I was also about 8 car bombs deep. Next week I would come to understand firsthand why their discomfort was so palpable. I was boarding my flight to LAX when I see an old woman struggling to place her carry on in the overhead bin. I stop to help her (see, I’m not the worst human being in the world). She has her passport in hand, and I see she’s from Taiwan. I inform her (in her tongue) that I used to live in Taiwan and that if she needs any further assistance during the flight, don’t hesitate to ask. After we land, she asks me to get her bag, and I oblige. As we’re waiting to deplane, we exchange pleasantries, and I ask her why she was in Orlando. Apparently her grandkids live in Jamlando, and I inquired if she’d gone to any of the theme parks. She replied “wo.men qu.guo nei.ge, nei.ge, nei.ge, nei.ge…” She couldn’t remember the name of the Magic Kingdom, and though innocuous in Chinese, it sounded to the rest of the plane as if this sweet ole grandma was spewing a barrage of racially-charged insults. I look around to see that I’m SURROUNDED by black people, staring. Daggers. Ruh-roh! That’s when it clicked. “Oooh so THIS is how my friends felt!” I predict that within the next ten years that a similar scenario will eventually lead to me having major dental reconstructive surgery.

Zhong Han Quote of the Day!

(in response to a picture under which I adorned the caption“Ooooh, this one cracks me up EVERY time. Every Chinese girl’s fantasy: being the Empress Dowitcher,” Zhong Han retorts with

“If you come back ,i will cook you like cook pork!” -Zhong Han

-As a special first blog entry treat, we’re having another dose of Zhong Han, courtesy of Gchat:
Zhong: our brunch (that’s supposed to be branch) will open in New york in september

Zhong: maybe i could go to New york for training

Me: well i’ll be sure to not be there

HIRARIOUS VIDEOS!

This could be the funniest video i’ve seen in a long time. It’s a shame too, the Chinese original is a classic. But this English version would send Simon Cowell into convulsions.

-Also, if any of you are fans of “The Wire” (arguably the greatest show in the history of awesome), this clip of The Wire with a laugh track is some funny shizzle. If you don’t watch the show, you’ll think we’re retarded. Whateva, your loss.

What’s in a Name?

As you know, I taught English in China last year. Part of the fun is every student gets to pick his or her English name. Some opt for more traditional names (say, Mark or Mary), some choose the name of their favorite actor or singer (Brad, Jay, Rain, and Jolin were all popular choices), and some apparently shroom on a consistent basis because to voluntarily call oneself names like “Apple,” “Juicy,” “Rollin,” or my personal favorite, “Pussy,” could only be the result of excessive use of psychedelic substances. Well, one English student who I got to know very well chose the name “Yama” for herself. When she introduced heself, I simply assumed it was her Chinese name. (She would later inform me that her Chinese name was actually Zhong Han, and so then, I assumed she just chose two consonants and one vowel and just ran with it). One day, after a pillowing sesh, Zhong Han inquired: “Why you never call me Yama? Only call me Zhong Han. Other foreign teachers calls me Yama. Why no you?” I retorted that Yama wasn’t a real English name, that I thought it was a stupid fucking name, and that if I called you Yama it would only encourage you to speak English and my aural pain quota had already been filled for the month (You could tell we were truly in love. Fortunately most of my snide remarks went in one ear and out the other, sorry for the pun. Except if Tiffy is reading it. Then I’m not sorry). She then asked “Yama no English name? Then give me real English name. No, give me real AMERICAN name!” Sensing an opportunity, I struck. “You want a REAL American name? Ok, I’ll give you a real American name: Shaqueesha.” For the next month, she re-introduced herself to everyone as Shaqueesha. When she re-introduced herself to Ale, I’m pretty sure he blew a funny fuse or soiled his pants. Or both. She even changed her Gmail to Shaqueesha Zhong for a time. A few months later, Zhong “Shaqueesha” Han moved to cosmopolitan Shanghai, where she would run into a number of Americans. During this time, I received an email from Zhong Han that read: “Why when I introduce myself, everyone laugh?” I didn’t have the heart to continue the ruse any longer, so I explained to her that most people find a petite Chinese girl with a “traditionatlly” African-American name to be quite funny. Quite funny indeed.