Revenge of the Sneeze

note: When I write something in italics, assume that it's said in Chinese (except this, obviously. Just trying to get some workable device going here, bear with me, I might use some pinyin as well, at least until we get the formula right)



"It's too hot!"
"It's stinking hot!"
"It's disgustingly hot!"
"It's like an oven in here!"
"I'm sweating like a pig!"

Such were the example sentences I wrote on the blackboard today to try and arm the kids with some vocabulary relevant to the day.

"Ok, can you read this out please?" I said.

"It's too hot! It means, the weather's too hot, right?" said Tammy.

"Yes, that's what it means. Now could you read the second one please?"

"Teacher, the t you wrote is missing the stroke through it. It's wrong! We're not reading it!"

"What? I didn't write it wrong...it's just, handwriting."

"Teacher wrote it wrong!"

I pondered my options for a moment. Tammy is one of the better students but she's also really arrogant, stubborn and whiney. I could insist that I was right, being a native speaker of English and all- "Whatever I do is perfect, geddit? Just imitate me!"- but I'd tried that before and it didn't stop their criticism. And they'd use it against me in future.

"Hey, just wondering, do you guys know the word sneeze?"

"What?"

"Sneeze. Penti."

"Oh, sneeze."

"Yeah...hey...how is sneeze written again? Could someone come and write it please?"

I wrote the English word, and left space for the two characters to be written next to it.

There was first massive squealing over who would get to write it first, followed by a sudden silence of about 2 seconds as people realised that they in fact maybe didn't know how to write it. JJ came up and triumphantly wrote the first character, correctly，喷。 Then The Mental Blank hit her, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a 3 wheeled truck speeding from Shunyi to Beijing.

"It's the 3 stroke water radical...then..." someone began to call out.

"WRONG!" I shouted in response, like an impatient businessman in a cheap restaurant.

JJ returned to her seat, struck by The Blank. By this stage the class was transfixed. Tammy swaggered her way up and wrote the second character: 涕 .

So it was her who had called out before. Fortunately, it was the wrong character; she had written the ti character forming the part of snot, not of sneeze.

"WRONG! IT'S NOT THE SNOT TI! I'LL TEACH YOU ALL SOME CHINESE! THIS IS HOW IT'S WRITTEN!"

I proceeded to write the correct character: 嚏

Silence. And then Tammy started up: "It's not that one! It's the one I wrote!"

"Check your dictionaries," I said, my voice quivering with excitement, "in fact, I'll show you on my mobile phone right now. THERE, SEE!"

As people frantically flicked through dictionaries and shot back wide eyes, I showed Tammy the soul crushing truth.

"I WIN, YOU GUYS LOSE! I FINALLY HAVE MY REVENGE!" I bellowed, like a victorious Spartan (the latter being a phrase I picked up watching the animated Tin-Tin series). The kids erupted into a laughing frenzy.

*******************

I wish I could say I'd shown them once and for all, but things have a way of coming back and biting one on the arse.

In this case, I managed to sour the victory by a small, innocent mistake, in the worst possible context.

We were going through the pronunciation of stinking, thinking and sinking, and I had just tried to tell the semi-bi-lingual version of the whole "We're sinking!" "What are you sinking about?" joke of the English and German submarines (though I used ships, not knowing the word for submarine).

The th sound wasn't coming through with some of the kids, so I wanted to make a suggestion.

"Like, put the tongue under the teeth," I said. At least, that's what I thought I said. Teeth, yatou, right?

Wrong. Some of the kids started giggling.

"Teacher..you mean teeth, yachi."

"Oh...right..." What had I said? Oh, crap.

Yatou. Woman... put the tongue under the woman.

Oh. My. God.

I did find a way of saving a tiny little bit of face, by using a phrase I had just learned today.

"Well, I'm off to go sleep on brushwood and eat gall then." A way of saying you'll spend some serious time thinking about your mistakes, I think. This got a laugh out of them in any event.

In any event, I put it down to the confusion between tongue shetou and teeth, yachi, ending up in the yatou caffufle. But, seriously.

Thank Christ they aren't teenagers.

*******************

I should mention here, I owe the advice about sneeze to two awesome bloggers, which I'll update by blogroll to list since I've been reading them so much recently.

They are:

John B.

and

Brendan.

They know Chinese really well, they write really well and they write about China really well. They're frequently informative, and sometimes hilarious. What more do you want?