An exam essay (London)

When I was examiner for the University of London Board ‘O’ level Chinese exams in the ’80s (1984–1988), one of the essay titles was “Education”.

An overseas candidate (from Hong Kong) wrote something to this effect:

[start of essay]

I had always been a poor student.  One day, I got a duck’s egg for my maths.  

I thought, “OK, so I got a duck’s egg, so what?”

My mother then got a letter from the school principal to go and see him.  

I thought, “OK, so the principal wants to see my mother, so what?”

When my mother returned from the meeting, I knew something was not quite right.

After that day, my friends gave me the nickname “Zebra”.

[end of essay]

(London, 1984/85)

*The Chinese don’t just get a zero, they get a big zero (a duck’s egg being bigger than a hen’s egg), so it’s even more humiliating.  My MacBook Pro dictionary gives it as “goose egg” in American English, which is even bigger!

goose egg (noun, N. Amer. informal): a zero score in a game.

ORIGIN:  late 19th cent.: with reference to the shape of the zero

duck (noun, Cricket): a batsman's score of nought: he was out for a duck.

ORIGIN:  mid 19th cent.: short for duck's egg, used for the figure 0 because of its similar outline.

Unconscious pun (London)

My beloved tutor and supervisor at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), Dr. Paul Mulligan Thompson*, told me this:

A props manager working on a play that featured cannibals in the story line had to find scalps to go on display.  

One of the publicity claims of the department store Harrods at the time was that you could find anything in their store, and if not, they’d source it for you.  So, the props manager rang them up.  

In those days, one had to go through the switchboard operator to get to the right department / person.  He explained to the switchboard operator what he wanted.

At the end of it, the operator said, without realising her unconscious pun (they have to handle so many calls each day that they don’t usually process more than the purely superficial), “OK, I’ll put you through to the Head Buyer.”

(London, 1970s)

*https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jun/27/guardianobituaries.obituaries

Students’ mistakes are much more fun: 01 (London)

A scenario in one of the textbooks used on the evening programme had the three student protagonists asking the teacher if he’d be free on Saturday.  

In my own first hand experience, an almost universal answer given by the Chinese when asked such a question is: “你有什么事 / nǐ yǒu shénme shì / "you have what matter" ( = What is it? / What do you have in mind?)  For some reason, the Chinese don’t seem to like providing information freely.

Sure enough, the teacher in the textbook scenario asked, “What do you have in mind?”

The answer was, “We’re having a birthday party on Saturday, and would like you to 参加.”

Now, 参加 means “to take part”, romanised in the Pinyin system as cānjiā.  The “c” in “参 cān” is pronounced “ ts’ ”, an aspirated explosive sound expelled between the teeth.  Beginner students who are still not that familiar with the Pinyin system almost invariably pronounce cānjiā as “kānjiā”, with the “c” being rendered as a “k” sound.  Unfortunately, “kānjiā” does exist, 看家, meaning “look after house”.

My perverse sense of humour always creases me up at this point, “No wonder the teacher was so cagey about telling them if he would be free on Saturday.  They only wanted him to housesit while they were throwing a birthday party and enjoying themselves!”

During a Listening Comprehension exercise, Italian student Sonia made a mistake which I found to be more fun than the original.  

The original was: 

stop by at the gift shop and 看看给张老师买点什么 /  “look look for Zhang teacher buy a bit of what”.  

Sonia, in repeating after me, left out the 给 gěi / “for”, so her version came out as: 

看看张老师买点什么 / “look look Zhang teacher buy a bit of what”, 

which is a nosey “Have a look at what Teacher Zhang is buying”, instead of “See what to buy for Teacher Zhang”.

(London)

The Chinese publishing delegation from Inner Mongolia (London)

Back in the 80s, a Chinese publishing delegation from Inner Mongolia came to visit Linguaphone (who produce self-study language courses).  They were bringing their own interpreter but Linguaphone asked me to attend the meeting all the same, just to check that their interpreter was translating things accurately.

The interpreter turned out to be an Englishman, who was visibly nervous to see me.  After a brief pre-meeting chat, however, he discovered that we’d both been to SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), so he felt less intimidated.  I assured him that I’d be happy to help out if he got stuck.

The delegation told Linguaphone that they were most interested in their English course, but they did not have any foreign currency with which to pay for the course.  They wondered if they could pay with yak wool instead, as they had plenty of yaks in Inner Mongolia.

(London, 1986)

Hedging one’s bets (London)

One of my students, Judith Morris, on the evening programme was a retired senior lady who had done a degree in Chinese at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) in the 1950s.  Like Oxbridge, they only did classical Chinese in those days, so she came to my evening classes for the modern side of the language.

In one of her homework, I found a recurring word translated differently each time, so I wrote the comment: “You’re not even consistent in your mistakes!”  

She said, “I was hedging my bets.  If I was wrong about one particular rendition, then I’d get all of them wrong.  The way I’d done it, I might at least get one of them right.”

(London, 1990s)

Chinese puns: May Yong (London)

The Chinese love taking advantage of the homophonic system to do puns, to have a laugh at the expense of the unsuspecting "victim".

I used to have a Malaysian woman in my evening class, by the name of May, who had married a Mr Yong, so she went by her married name.  

For years, I called her May Yong, May Yong, before I suddenly realised one day it sounds just like 没用 méi yòng (shortened from 没有用 méiyǒu yòng / "not have use" = useless).  I emailed her about this, and we had a good giggle over it.  

After that, I'd call her 有用 (yǒu yòng / "have use" = useful) in class, which became a private joke between us.

(London, 2000)

Growing old

Charles Saatchi on growing old: “Growing old is not for sissies”, Evening Standard [newspaper], 110517

QUOTE
Routinely, your back goes out more than you do, your knees buckle but your belt won’t, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.
UNQUOTE

Touché.