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Thursday, November 10, 2011

I Didn't Say I Could Write

I have a mini-fan club. Or, I'm just as big a sucker as I was at 8 when any member of my family could get a free grilled cheese or BLT just by flattering my cooking skillz. (And I do have mad skillz.) All to say, these girls come to get my help on various standardized tests and essays.

Two days ago, I got a visit from one of the fan club. She's known by the entire staff to have a grocery store in her locker and a convenience store in her pockets. She claims it's not true, but it is. Since she's warmed up to me (it's amazing what saying nice things about an essay will do), I am on the list of teacher swho are regularly offered food. So while snacking on "sushi flavored" potato chips (they're really just wasabi flavored), we got talking about pronunciation.

Then we got talking about my bad Chinese pronunciation (read: horrible). Then somehow, it came up that I could read about 10 characters. She wanted to know which ones. Well, that meant I had to write them down... So I tried to write "lamb", and I think I did a halfway decent job -- but she broke into gales of laughter.

 I mean gales.

I know that there is a right and a wrong way to write Chinese characters. You are supposed to start with a certain stroke, and write each character in the same sequence. I looked at her.

"My elementary school teacher would be so angry with you," she said amidst her giggles.

"What?" I countered. "No one has ever taught me how to write."

She smiled. "I always got yelled at by my teacher, too."
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