It
would appear China has some not-so-secret plot to corner the market on little
brown Poodles. I’m not sure why, but
they are definitely the dog of China.
Not only were they all around Shanghai, they’re pretty much the only
dogs I’ve seen in Guangzhou, too. The
other night I did see a woman walking two beautiful, good-sized Samoyeds, and
there is someone in my building who has a pretty Collie. But they stand out because of the otherwise
ubiquity of the poodles.
Curious
about this “phenomena,” I decided to Google it.
As always when you start to type something into Google, you never know
what you’re going to see. As I started
typing, “Why are there so many brown Poodles in China?” the first suggestions on
the auto-fill for “Why are there so many…” were, in order: stink bugs, songs
about rainbows, religions, and gay people.
Once I added the b to “Why are there so many..” the first suggestions
were: black people in Detroit, and brown people in Canada Frankly, I never realized there were that
many stink bugs. Or brown people in Canada.
Anyway, all I could find on the poodle mystery was a discussion thread
on a Shanghai expat board. Apparently,
the little Poodles – which are called Gui
Bin or VIP in Chinese – are popular because they’re smart and small sized
for city living. But there’s lot of
smart, small dogs, so I still don’t get it.
If I knew I were staying here for a long time, I’d consider one just to be hip. But I’ve always thought keeping a dog in an
apartment is kind of cruel – esp. those Samoyeds I saw and/or the Collie.
I
forgot to mention my trip with Bex to a haunted house in the Grandview Mall –
one of my very favorite places in GZ (as mentioned earlier) due to
the fact they have a Dairy Queen, a Toys R Us, multiple aquariums and funky
dioramas, an ice skating rink, bumper cars, a large arcade, and the
aforementioned haunted house. Since they
don’t really celebrate Halloween here much yet, we decided to check it out on
Halloween Eve – despite its steep 20 quai cost (that’s a whole $3 and
change!). As it turns out, Bex & I
aren’t the best twosome to do something like that together.
For
a true Haunted House “connoisseur,” this particular one may not have been that
scary. But since Bex & I are both
wussies, and since we were the ONLY ones in said haunted house at the time, and
since it was VERY, VERY dark and very twisty, and relied on random things
popping out at you from both the sides AND from above…..well, let’s just say it
wasn’t pretty. Bex was mad I kept
cowering behind her and pushing her ahead of me, and *I* was mad that she
wouldn’t let me cower behind her and push her ahead of me. About 1/3 of the way through, I told her,
“Hey, at least everything’s inanimate!”
And Bex replied, “So far. That doesn’t mean shit! Some living thing is going
to…SHRIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!” The shriek was
mine as a living thing DID jump out at us.
And then another one. The third
one started following us, by which point I had already buried my head in Bex’s
hair and closed my eyes. Finally tiring
at my refusal to be the man and protect her, Bex started running, which made me
start laughing. But also run along with
her, and we both ran, screaming and laughing at our own hysteria for fully the
final third of the “attraction.” So it’s
hard to say whether or not we got our money’s worth. But we did learn a valuable lesson: not to go
in Haunted Houses w/o Nicky – who led us through the Headless Horesman Haunted
House at Hong Kong Disneyland, cackling and “boo!”-ing right back at all the
“boogeymen” there. Nicky, hurry and
finish your SELTA and come home to protect me and Bex from monsters!
Speaking
of Bex, for some reason everyone here thinks she’s Russian. The locals, other expats – including Russians! To some extent, I can understand it – with her
red hair, alabaster skin, and relative height, she could indeed easily pass for
Russian; and there are a fair number of Russkis here in GZ. But for some reason it REALLY annoys her. It’s actually kind of cute, coz she seems to
honestly think it’s something of a “slam” to consider her Russian, when, in
fact, she’s British – like that
is so much more exciting and/or glamorous (snicker). I keep trying to teach her a few random, “entertaining”
Russian phrases to use on folks to mess with them, but after 6 months in China,
all she can say in Chinese is “straight, left, right, and here” so she can get
around in a cab. Bless her heart, her
language aptitude seems even worse than mine – and mine is awful! J
There’s
all kinds of “fun” with our students’ names at Disney English. First of all, many parents choose English
names for their kids when they start at Disney or start learning English. Some of them may do it/have done it already
for other reasons. But some of them have
clearly done it just for Disney, and the child’s English name is only used when
AT Disney English. This means the child
often doesn’t know his/her “own” name. I
have been literally 12 inches away from a child, whose head is turned,
screeching his/her name (“Katie!
Katie!! KATIE!!”) and they don’t even bat an eye or turn their head coz
why would she when her name is Niu Niu?
What’s
annoying, however, is when they’ve been at Disney for awhile and THEN decide to
change their name/add an English name.
One of the youngsters in my F1D class, Kang Kang (pronounced Kong Kong),
is an adorable little moppet who has gone from a dim-witted nearly silent
non-participator when he started with me to a cuter than ever, smart little English
chatterer whose mom is apparently so enamored of his progress that she’s
decided to change his name to David.
Now, I actually have two other students named David (in two different
classes) and that’s cool/kind of neat coz they both have fun personalities, and
I’ve always and only ever known them as “David.” But Kang Kang is Kang Kang. My Learning Partner, Amy, made a half-hearted
effort to remind/correct me the first couple of classes after we were informed
of the change, but even she found it jarring – particularly as she’s had him as
a student for nearly twice as long as I have.
But
here’s the real kicker: I have a girl, Aolin, in one of my classes who we were
recently informed should be called Lin Lin.
While that one makes kind of sense as maybe a nickname, I still can’t
make the switch. I just don’t get
it. But as you may have noticed, they
definitely like “double names” here – and single names that repeat
syllables. One of my very favorite and
cutest kids is an adorably solemn boy named Hao Hao. I also have a Qiqi, a couple of Cici’s,
another Lin Lin (a boy), a Dong Dong (yes, honestly), a Long Long, a Ming Ming,
etc. It’s probably a luck thing, or
something.
Speaking
of one of my Davids, he provided me with THE best laugh I have had in a long,
LONG time. Totally innocent, as
well. At the start of each lesson for
all the F2 classes and above, we do a brief phonics lesson. It’s often entertaining coz you never know
when the kids are gonna “get” the blends and many of them just shout out the
only word they know that has the target sound in it (for example, if the word
as the “Apple” A sound in it, then by god, they’re going to guess “Apple!” even
if the word is bat or fan or mad or whatever.
Plus, because of the language differences, they will hear consonants
that are not in the actual word I’m trying to get them to hear/produce.
The
other day, I was teaching the soft U sound – as in “fun.” We have this cool tool on the IWB
(interactive whiteboard) where I can pop up/create words/letter combos and hit
the letters in order to get the individual sounds and then see if the kids can
figure out the word. I put the letters N-U-T up there then hit them in order a
few times in a row to see if someone could get it. A couple of kids just said “UT” so I had to
remind them to listen to the first letter – “N”. After I hit it a few more times, David raised
his hand excitedly and I asked if he knew….OMG, I’m laughing again already….what
the word was. He chirped out: “Cunt!” And I absolutely LOST. IT. It was actually kind of bad because he had
NO. IDEA. what he’d said – hell, even Amy my Learning Partner who speaks pretty
damn good English had never heard the word, so she was unsure why I was
laughing so hard and had my face buried in the IWB. Poor David was on the verge of tears because
he had no idea why I was laughing so hard at him! Amy had to say to him, “It’s okay, David,
that was a good guess!” (again, oblivious to what he’d said and kind of mad at
me for being so “mean” to David).
I
managed to compose myself, gave David a high five, and assured him he had indeed
made a good guess, and then told the class, “Okay, let’s try one more time. Listen closely.” (Keep in mind, these kids are like 5-6 years
old.) And then, I swear to god, the next
boy, Winnie, raised his hand excitedly, I called on him, and he said brightly –
and, again, you could tell from his expression/demeanor he had no idea what he
was saying, chirped out, “Fuck!” Well, Amy knew what THAT word was and so we
BOTH lost it…and, again, poor Winnie almost burst into tears because he thought
we were making fun of his bad English, so Amy finally says, “Nut! The word is NUT!! But good try, Winnie!” Another high five from me and an assurance he’d
made a good effort, and we quickly ended the phonics portion of the lesson for
that evening! J
