I was at lunch yesterday after church with several people from the worship team; Larissa, the worship leader and an English teacher at a cram school (I’m the only one of the group not currently teaching), related her teaching highlight of the week:
Whenever the kids would finish whatever activity they were working on, they would promptly proclaim: “Teacher, I finish(ed)!” Pretty close, except that Chinese people have horrible trouble with closed consonant sounds, so their pronunciation of “finish” often comes out all wrong*. Larissa, tired of hearing the word “finish” constantly being butchered, finally instructed them to say “done” instead (true, it’s grammatically incorrect, but oh so much easier to pronounce..). The end of the next activity earned Larissa a chorus of “Teacher, I dumb”. Not exactly what she had intended since she’s not there to teach the kids how to unknowingly denigrate themselves, so she promptly corrected them. Sadly, their mispronunciation of “done” at the end of the next activity was no better than their first. Decidedly worse, in fact. “Teacher, I dung!”
Larissa didn’t say if she had the students go back to saying “finish”..
__________
(*) Closed consonant sounds like the letters “F” or “L” (eff, ell) generally end up being pronounced “effoo” and “elloh” by Chinese people. Chinese consonant sounds almost all end on an open vowel sound (bu, pu, mu, fu…), so the Chinese mispronunciation of the “sh” sound often comes out as something close to “shee” (German shü) — “finish” ends up sounding like “fee-nee-shü”. Making it past tense (finished) just leaves you with “fee-nee-shü-d(uh)”.
Kindergarten playground politics, all grown up. Here’s what happens when poorly raised children grow up to become bratty adults with no self-control or anger-management skills.
I initially saw the May 08, 2007 article back in, well.. May, and was a bit surprised at the immature behavior exhibited in such a public forum. I’ve since done some more digging and found that this is not outrageous, as it ought to be - it’s merely par for the course here. I should have guessed as much, based on classroom, traffic and other unacceptable behavior I’ve observed and been subjected to. It’s just another case of undisciplined, selfish children hiding in adult bodies.
Grab a bag of chips or popcorn and prepare to be entertained and astounded by the antics of (in these articles, anyway) Asian lawmakers. This is the kind of stuff that movies are made of, where we then ridicule it as being far-fetched and unrealistic.. Only these incidents really took place - the BBC says they’re so!
I was driving home from work one day (March 23, 2007 - yeah, I’m catching up..) from Fengshan City, just east of Kaohsiung on Jiouru Rd, a rather large 4 lane road in the middle of the city with NO farms anywhere nearby, so hearing chickens clucking was more than a bit odd and out of place. The fact that the intermittent sound of the chickens stayed ahead of me was also strange (I had originally assumed they were along the side of the road), until I realized that some farmer must be taking his chickens to market somewhere and I just hadn’t met up with the truck yet.
The biggest surprise came when I actually caught up to the chickens:
If you look very closely, you can see smoke coming from the chickens nearest the tailpipe, on the right (click the picture to view it full-size). I always knew they did something special to give Asian food that distinctive flavor..
I can’t exactly tell, but I think there are around 12 chickens hanging from the back of the scooter. Plus, the woman had a large laundry basket of chickens between her legs with five or six birds, and the basket on the front of the scooter had two or three more. I think it’s safe to say there are around 20 chickens on this scooter.. I’ve definitely witnessed some crazy things in traffic here, but this is definitely one of the most unique!
Typhoon Krosa spent the weekend beating up on Taiwan, paying special attention to the northern half, where I live. Sustained winds of 185km/h (115mph) caused extensive damage to trees and street signs, and torrential rains have spawned flooding and mudslides. Here’s a detailed report from the Taipei Times.
Krosa thankfully has now turned it’s attention to China.
Here are some pictures of the damage in Hsinchu (click the pictures or the captions for a larger version):
Here’s a car/scooter accident caught on film that took place in Kaohsiung, the city where I used to live in southern Taiwan. Miraculously, the scooter driver only suffered very minor injuries (scrapes and bruises). Traffic lights are often (sometimes always, depending on the intersection) considered mere suggestions. I’ve learned to watch the cross traffic like a hawk when I have a green light!
Kindergarten playground politics, all grown up. Here’s what happens when poorly raised children grow up to become bratty adults with no self-control or anger-management skills.
Latest Comments