Are you have girlfriend?

I mentioned before that one reason I love living in China is that I laugh everyday. Sometimes it comes from my students--their demeanor, their persona, their fashion, their personality...about a million things. They are a funny bunch, whether they are intentional about it or not. (Most Chinese, I'd say, have a pretty good sense of humor--my Chinese friends are often telling me (pretty funny) jokes and love to tease each other jokingly. While certain things don't translate, many forms of humor easily cross the linguo-cultural barrier. Much of the humor here is pretty similar to the US, actually. Hooray!).   


Other times, the things I laugh at most are the English translations. Approaching English from a Chinese mindset gives rise to the beautiful little gem collectively known as Chinglish. The grammar and tendencies common when speaking Chinese often do not yield an appropriate English translation when translated literally. To my delight, China is full of Chinglish (check here for a few examples I encountered when I had my camera with me.) and I am never disappointed. Most Chinglish ends up on clothing since it's quite popular to have clothes with English (or pseudo-English) writing. (Interestingly, as a fellow teacher pointed out the other day, you rarely see clothes in China that have Chinese characters on them. It seems as though most clothes are either without any writing, or they have English.) 


And then there are times when my laughter is from the wonderful collision of my students + Chinglish/still learning to speak English. I'd like to share with you some favorite things I've seen and heard, since it's just so wonderful. Enjoy:


At the beginning of each semester, during my first class, I end by giving my students an opportunity to ask me anything they like, after which they will get a rather bashful look on their face. Fortunately, I've been here long enough to know: a, there are three particular questions they all want to know first, and; b, these three questions are the source for their bashfulness. I think you can guess as to the nature of the three questions, but in case there's any doubt:
1. Do you have a girlfriend? 
2. How old are you? 
3. Would you marry a Chinese girl? 
After passing this first round of essential questions, we move on to less-important ones like "what's your definition of happiness?", and "What's your opinion about America's war in Iraq?"


I usually have the students write down their questions and give them to me to read anonymously because they'd never ask me in real-time (like that?)--that would make them too nervous. I also like to see all the questions they have since we usually only have time to answer a few in class. After class I pour over the different questions and pick my favorites. Below are just some, either written verbatim (as I still have the question with me), or recreated as best as I can recollect: 

Do you smoking?

Are you have girlfriend?

Are you like to eat Chinese food?

Are you like volleyball?

You wear too thin. Don’t you feel cold?

I want to know why do you so tall?
Do you drink tea? It is good for your healthy. 

How do you think about China?

How do you think of Chinese girl?

Teacher is tall and handsome. To me excited. (I know this isn't a question, but I felt that you'd appreciate the Chinglish in the second sentence. I also figured you might be interested in knowing that the first sentence pretty much sums up just about every compliment a student has ever given me, using those exact words.) 

These questions give a good example of pretty typical Chinglish I encounter daily, particularly the difficulty many Chinese have with properly conjugating words and getting the correct tense (two things that are completely absent from Chinese language). This has me thinking, and I've decided to devote an entire post to deconstructing Chinglish for you. I think it would be instrumental in understanding why Chinglish is just so wacky and simultaneously amazing and hilarious. Check back later.


The weekly journal assignments I give my students also provides a wealth of wonderful/hilarious things. Sometimes it's the Chinglish. Sometimes its the topics they choose to write about. Other times, it's the unexplainable, like one time when my student GE wrote her entire journal entry on a piece of tissue paper. The best part is that it was completely normal for her. My guess is that she didn't have any paper at the moment, so the thinking goes: why wouldn't a piece of tissue suffice? It's about as thick as Chinese paper anyway, right? Right. 


In one assignment, I asked students to name three people they considered to be the most successful in the world. "Mao Zedong", "mother and father", and "Bill Gates" were the overwhelming favorites, which isn't surprising in a culture where filial piety is paramount to pretty much anything, national leaders are beyond reproach, and Bill Gates's economic success is the envy of more than a few. 


The homework also yielded a few interesting comments from students, one in particular:


"Kobe Bryant is playing for the lakes. He is one of my very worship. Buffet, because everyone called he stock god....he success in it, so I also worshipped him. Stephen Hawking...though he is a wheel, could do [great things] in his life. I’m worship him." 


Before you assume my students are deifying Warren Buffet, you should note that 'worship' is almost certainly not the word this student meant. 'Adore' or 'admire' would probably have been his choice--but he didn't grasp this when he used his Chinese-English dictionary. 


This is another humorous part of teaching: when students choose the wrong English word when trying to find the English equivalent to the Chinese word they want to use. I once had a student tell me she made a gift for her friend. In her words, the gift was a "genial blanket." I think she meant 'warm'. Hilarious--a genial blanket. 


The paper and notebooks my students use will often have some funny or cute-like picture or saying on it. It's hard to explain in words, but you can imagine that notebooks and paper here have a kind of "happy, shiny, cute, lovey" quality. Just the other day, a message in the bottom corner of my student's paper reminded me, "Naver devate you passion to unmecessary thing" with a picture of a coffee mug next to it. Heed this warning, America. A different piece of paper from another student informed me that I should "remember the happiness time." Indeed I will. 


A few weeks ago I had the students do "How To..." presentations. Naturally, one presentation was on the topic of how to escape from a lion. A summary of the presentation follows:

How to catch a lion:

First: Two lions are hanging out

Second: Two lions catch people

Third: People run opposite

Fourth: Lions are tired

Fifth: People catch lions

And now for the Chinglish clothing, my favorite part of this whole post. I see great Chinglish on clothes all the time--the following examples are just from the last two weeks, so just know that I could post hundreds of times on this topic. Wonderful.

Chinese clothing with English falls into various categories. Many fall into the "legitimate" category, as they have English that's correct, although I often wonder why the maker of the shirt chose those particular words. For example:

Good Luck

________________

Wendy's

________________

I love Giraffes 

Some get a little stranger:

Why no eggs?

________________

Math sucks (which is actually kind of awesome)

Then you have the shirts that just seem to have English words. No spelling problems, no grammar--just words. There may or may not be any sensical meaning: 

smile happiness

________________

Tokyo Atom

________________

Macaron

Good taste 

from France
________________


Take 

Another category includes clothing with English that is close to failure, but has redeemable qualities. These clothing items are usually an interesting combination of incorrect spelling and grammar, and random/bizarre statements. This is my favorite category because it's as close to complete English failure as you can get before you are completely unable to discern the attempted words or sentences; you can still figure out what the shirt is supposed to say. For example:

Nestle Quik 

Checolate Malk

________________

Auburn Unicerste

WAR DAMN

EAGLE

And finally, you have the clothing with English that just doesn't make any sense. It's a stretch even to call it English. Some shirts have variations on a word. Others have what appears to be just a random string of letters:

youxxlyti inthe loves 

foayyhastowinttter the 

youxxly wesslyive 

theiixy louxxlulu

(This is not exactly what the shirt said--I couldn't remember it exactly--but you get the idea.)

________________

                  the

     f-stops hot

             godha

           pointof

view+moussey
________________


L'EVERY
LOUD HAS
ASILVER
SANFAN

I suppose I still have to decide if I should say anything to my students. You know, maybe to let them know that their supposed "English" shirt is in fact gibberish. 

But I probably won't. It's just too funny.