Comments on: Has anyone seen my face?

By: Todd

Todd — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 00:07:37 +0000

This story gave me an idea for a t-shirt design: a picture of a peach, with the words “bi yun tao” underneath.

Anyway Ryan, it’s lucky you went straight home, or otherwise you might have ended up trying to buy condoms from a fruit vendor

By: Chris (in Dalian)

Chris (in Dalian) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:35:49 +0000

I was playing with a friend’s electro-dictionary 9000 (or some similarly over-priced model) today and had to check this one. I translated condom to Chinese, then translated that back to English:

“Insurance applied”

I think we found us a pickup line.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:58:19 +0000

@Ryan: Oh, but I DO need to make an ass of myself. It’s in my nature being a man and therefore dimwitted too.

By: Erin

Erin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:29:29 +0000

Because this amuses me so much, I ended up showing my mother, who is Chinese. She laughed, a lot, and then told me another word for condom (apologies for the atrocious pinyin): Baoxiantao. Literally: Insurance cover.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:04:38 +0000

You guys sure know how to make a guy feel better about the embarrassment, cheers!

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 05:57:48 +0000

Okay, I’ve got to throw this one in.
I taught at a summer camp in Xiamen this summer for two weeks and was given the lowest level students. Becuase of this, they actually encouraged me to speak a bit of Chinese with them. Break the ice, so to speak.
Well, when I was there I continually referred to myself as a ‘tu1 zi’. ”啊，你们好！我是你们的外国老师。我是一个tu1 zi!”
I have a shaved head and I was under the impression that ‘tu1 zi’ meant bald guy. Along the same lines as “光头”or, ‘bald-headed’.
Come to find out after talking with a Chinese friend in Shanghai, “tu1 zi’ means…well…homosexual.
From the gist of the conversation I should have been saying ‘tu4 zi’.
I never delved into verifying any of this, but my friend certainly found it funny that I conitnually introduced myself saying: “Hello! I’m your foreign teacher and I’m a homosexual!”

By: Chip

Chip — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:02:50 +0000

Ryan,

The sad thing is, it occured to none of them that I was trying to say “wear a helmet”, and the whole face-thing prevented them from saying anything about it. Five minutes later, I’m thinking, “did I just say I wear a condom on my bike? oh well”

By: Jeremiah

Jeremiah — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:50:03 +0000

That was hysterical. I think we all have similar “Hanyu-impaired” moments in our language study careers. Thanks for the chuckle.

By: Erin

Erin — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:36:29 +0000

I think I learn more Chinese in this blog (and comments)than I do from my books.

By: Chris (in Dalian)

Chris (in Dalian) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:33:17 +0000

I recently tried to ask my housemate’s boyfriend if he’d used the coffee maker that morning. Knowing that “bread maker” (“It has three speeds”) is “mianbaoji,” I figured “ji” could just be tacked onto anything as a machine word or something (someone smarter correct me on this, please). Being that this was a crowded restaurant, he misheard “kafei ji” as “da feiji,” and gave me that, “Why are you asking this (loudly and repeadedly) in a restaurant with my girlfriend across the table?”

And that’s how I learned the Chinese phrase for jerking off.