Short, Funny Quips

These are piling up, and well worth sharing. So I’m going to share.

Misunderstandings make for the best laughs, don’t they? Simple misunderstandings, not the kind that change careers or make people mad at you. I’m talking about those that make you howl nonsensically, such as when I said I wanted to throw my son’s dog off the balcony when I meant I wanted to throw the dog’s ball off the balcony. They should have known I would never throw their dog off the balcony.

But I’ve already told you that story. Now I’m going to tell you different ones. Like when I was teaching Gabriel how to count in Chinese. Yi, yi he repeats after me. Er, er he intones. San, san he drones. We make is all the way to ‘ten’. We run through it a few times. The boy’s inflection is just about perfect. I decide it is time to acquaint him with the song that the Chinese have for little ones to remember the numbers. Clapping my hands, I chant “Yi, er, san!” and encourage Gabe to sing after me.

The poor child looks half-bewildered and totally mystified. I repeat the first three numbers: “Yi, er, san” while clapping my hands on ‘yi’ and ‘san’. Again he looks as though I’ve suddenly taken leave of my senses. When I ask him what is wrong, he replies, a slightly disbelieving smile on his face: “Mema, are you saying ‘Eat our son’?” I burst into laughter, for that is exactly what it sounds like I’m saying.

So now you know: if you wish to count to three in Chinese, simply say, or chant ‘eat our son’ while clapping your hands for emphasis. Every Chinese person will understand that you are counting and that you are not a cannibal.

And then there was the time that Sam came over for a visit. It just so happened that Grace, one of my students from Fujian province had just brought me some tea from her home and I was getting ready to brew a pot. Sam would have the joy of trying this tea with me.

Boil the water while cleaning the teapot. Then, pour some hot water into the teapot to heat it up. Discard that water once the vessel is warm, put a few tea leaves in and douse them in hot water. I can make tea in my sleep. So, Sam and I chat while I go through the tea-making ritual. While the tea is steeping we settle in on the world’s ugliest couch for a long conversation. He picks up his teacup and sips.

“Wow! This tea is quite erotic!”

As I was about to take a sip of tea myself, I had to return my cup to the table. I did not want to drink erotic tea in the company of a married man. Maybe I would not like to drink erotic tea at all. So I asked him if he meant ‘exotic’ instead of ‘erotic’.

Yep. We convulsed with laughter.

And then, there were fingernails. As some of you know from “The Waiting Game” post of July and others have seen for yourselves when I visited with you, my fingernails have grown quite long. Very strange that I could not grow a fingernail to save my life in America, but here, it is not a problem.

Not that I believe the status of my nails is in any way important to you, but I have to inform you: all but three of them broke off. I’m blaming the mad cleaning extravaganza, and possibly not drinking any tea while I was stateside. The tea seems to have something to do with being able to grow nails. You need to know the status of my nails so that you can understand how the next quip came about.

Two of my friends, Zhanny and Dash were over for a visit and admiring my long, funky-painted nails. Dash’s nails are also quite long, so she wanted me to paint hers with red and white polka dots, like mine. I dug through my suitcase for the polish my daughter gave me, and then through my packed apartment stuff for the sparkling white polish that would go superbly with the deep red of Jennifer’s polish. As I was doing Dash’s nails, she and Zhanny reverted to their native tongue for their running commentary.

These girls are both very understanding of my Chinese language limitations and tend to either speak slowly enough for me to understand, or they will speak English, so as to include me. This time they were rattling off their musical language at warp speed, oblivious to me, the manicurist whose ear is barely trained to pick up the smattering of their language I’m familiar with.

Among the things they were saying, I kept hearing ‘jiao zi jia’. You will remember that ‘jiao zi’ (pronounced Gee-ow dzuh) is a boiled dumpling, traditionally made for celebrations and always consumed on Chinese New Year. ‘Jia’ (pronounced Gee-ah), means house. They said ‘jiao zi jia’ several times. I wondered: were we going to a dumpling restaurant to eat after I finish painting Dash’s nails?

I had to ask them. They had to laugh at me. As it turns out, ‘jiao zi jia’ sounds very similar to ‘zhao zhi jia’, which means fingernail. I didn’t catch on to that for several minutes because, through their giggles, they could not get the words out. Once they did, I too joined in the laughter. Not even I am immune to misunderstandings.

So now, if you enjoy a good manicure you can go into town and have your dumpling houses treated to a nice polish. You will look resplendent.

By the way: Dash’s nails turned out beautifully, but she took the polish off the very next day. She too broke a nail and didn’t want her ‘dumpling houses’ to look all broken and ridiculous.

There was another hilarious quip that Sam made and, even though I could swear I wrote it down, I can’t find my notes on it anywhere. I must have thrown them off the balcony with the dog. LOL!