I don't know how well it will write out, but today was pretty funny, I spent most of my second period class giggling. It seems like I've mentioned this all before but...
Today we had only three students, me and the two Korean girls. We were learning how to compare things in Chinese. "I am taller than she is." and "Her husband is even taller yet." (One of the student's husband also goes to school here and is quite tall. So coming to Asia has not made me any taller.) But then one of the students says "Marc is prettier than me." And yes, she used the word "pretty" that you'd use for a girl. The teacher asks her what, "why, what do you mean," and "You can't say 'pretty'" when referring to a man. Of course, I'm just sitting there laughing, wondering what on earth she's talking about, anticipating something weird as usual from her.
I remember a rapid stream of Korean pointed at the other Korean girl, then some Chinese I didn't quite understand, but then she points to the bridge of her cute little nose and tells us that it's not nearly "long" enough. Of course I'm laughing again mostly because I think she has a cute little nose (not that I told her so), but to me it's a whole new thing to hear girls wishing that they had longer noses.
The girl with the cute little button nose takes a pencil and places it across her eyes showing us just how inadequate she thinks her bridge is. So then I laugh and place a pencil from my forehead down my nose, since it's almost a straight line, I remember girls in High School teasing me that I could do this. Then the story goes a little bit deeper.
The button nose girl then tells us, in Chinese with bits of English, that when she was a small girl her parents would tell her how wonderfully long her nose was going to be when she grew up, and how wrong they'd been. So then I tell them all that when I was a kid, us kids were a little concerned that we might inherit our dad's especially "long nose" (Sorry dad, don't worry they'd love your nose.) Then she said that she'd even considered plastic surgery, but not seriously. "Amazing" I'm thinking, "back home it's all reverse."
Then the teacher tells us that her mom used to tell her too that she'd have a nice long nose when she grew up, but that she didn't trust her mom so she'd pinch her nose a lot to make it longer. She was a strange child she told us. Yes, yes, we did that too, the Korean girls said. Meanwhile I'm looking at all their little noses thinking that they all have nice little noses.
So then the teacher puts her hand in front of her face and says, more towards me, that some "Easterners" have very flat faces, indicating flat with her hand laughing. Of course I laugh and put my hands up to my face making a point in front of my face and say, yes, and we Westerners have pointy faces, often with big pointy noses and features. We all laughed at this, at East meets West, at pointy faces meet flat faces, and how some people often wanted to be something in between. And as I laughed I wondered in the back of my head if I shouldn't just stay in this land where my prominent nose-bridge makes me beautiful. (Just kidding)
The next class period of the day wasn't nearly as fun or as complimentary to my exotic pointy face. We just talked about how to describe the weather in Chinese. (edit 330) Permalink