[This is my Trail] Things I love about China: Making the Chinese Chuckle

[Rachelle]

Three recent episodes:

• One of my old students, Haibo (English name: Bobo--cracks me up!), works at Chicago Coffee and I see him there from time to time. I ran into him a few weeks ago and was telling him about how I went to the Jay Chou concert. Most Chinese people do not believe that I can understand/sing Chinese pop songs, so I usually have to sing a few lines to prove them wrong. Lately, my song of choice has been (obviously) "Busy Cowboy" (because who doesn't love milk-drinking cowboys???). Sing these 4 lines to any Chinese person and it will crack them up:

我虽然是个牛仔 Wo suiran shi ge niuzai Although I am a cowboy

在酒吧只点牛奶 Zai jiuba zhi he niunai In a bar I only order milk

为什么不喝啤酒 Weishenme bu he pijiu The reason I don't drink beer

因为啤酒伤身体 Yingwei pijiu shang shenti Is because beer is bad for your body

• I bought a pair of shoes in the countryside, in one of the places where my company works. They are the typical shoes that people wear in the countryside, but they are actually quite comfortable and, in my opinion, kind of cute with flowered embroidered on them. Chinese people think it's hilarious that a foreigner would be wearing these shoes, though, so they really like to point and laugh. I caused quite the stir when I wore them while walking around in a local neighborhood on a Sunday. I like to think they are just laughing at the shoes, and not my big feet...but I'm probably wrong.
  

• Carrying a piano down the street would probably get laughs in any country. In a strange twist of fate, on the same day that Lang Lang (international piano phenom and one of People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive 2008) was playing a concert in Kunming that I couldn't go to, which I'm not at all bitter about. Except that I am. But anyway. On that same day, we had a Christmas concert/dinner/fundraiser and had no other way to transport the electric piano than to carry it down the street for a half mile or so. Fun times. I really do wonder what Chinese people think about foreigners. They're still not used to seeing us white people around and sometimes we just do the darndest things.
  

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Posted By Rachelle to This is my Trail at 1/19/2008 12:05:00 AM