Very few, if any, mobile customers have voice mail enabled in Northeast Asia — they all txt. It was yet another strange lifestyle change that took some adjusting to (primarily because I didn’t care much for sending txt msgs in America).
Anyways, I was demonstrating my English abilities today at a new school near that Belgium pub I mentioned a few weeks ago.
The idea is that to recruit new students for a school, gringo’s like me typically make a public demonstration in front of the bill-paying parents… even if they don’t speak a word of ingles.
Why?
For several reasons. First, they want to try before they buy. And in all reality, they want to make sure their kid is learning angliski from someone that has blond hair, blue eyes and sounds like they are from the Midwest.
Fortunately for me, I am really good at looking white and talking like a white person (of course it helps that I read StuffWhitePeopleLike.com each week).
I mention all of this because in the lobby at the buxiban (cram school) there were various toys and trinkets for sale to the students… all blazoned with American flags and nonsensical Englishese (I’ve probably seen more American flags in Asia than I did in America…).
On one of the packages enclosing a dozen or so toy cars was a warning label printed on the front corner:
Not suitable for children 3 years old because small pieces can be swallowed.
I sent that as a txt to several of my friends and promptly won the chinglish award for the week.
Sucks to be a 3 year old. I mean if there is one thing we can all agree on: if you can’t put toys in your mouth, what’s the point of living?
Honorable mention: Last week I was at the airport and noticed a sign that combined the word sustainability and substantially: substaintantially. I no longer feel bad about my poor grammar or spelling.