07 December 2012

Best moment of the day.

A young woman sighed deeply. "He's just so handsome! I can't look at him enough! And today is my last chance to stare at him all class!" This was the sound of her despair before class started.

She wasn't talking about me. She was talking about our teacher, Professor H. And the crush that she's had on him since the beginning of the semester. As she mourns the nighness (that's not a word) of the end of the semester, she continues to say "I just want to stare at him all the time!" She peters out mid-sentence as she catches sight of Professor H. (who had just walked in) as he walked into the room.

She was not speaking quietly.

Professor H. looks confusedly, as we all start ROARING with laughter. Professor H. suddenly comes back from the world of his brain. He looks at us confusedly and says "What? What just happened?" Which only has us laughing more.

The following facebook conversation ensued (Can you tell which one came first for my practicing? It only gets better from here.) Colors coordinate cross-conversation. I'm brown.


06 December 2012

The deaf man.

Story time:
My companion and I were doing our English tracting. Meaning, we wandered around and put tracts for the free English classes in mailboxes. As we were going down a street putting tracts in boxes, we saw a small apartment complex with a superintendent (kind of. A “guanliyuan”) out in the office guarding the gate to get in.

There were some guanliyuans who would let us put the flyers in the mailboxes of their apartment complexes (or dalous) if you asked, or at least let you put a stack of them out on the counter for residents to grab if they were interested.

So we pull up at this dalou, and since I was new, I just start putting these little flyers in the mailboxes. My companion starts on the other side. After we get probably 15 of the 30 done, the guanliyuan notices us and starts signaling at us to stop. My companion starts explaining to him what we’re doing, but then the guy starts trying to sign to us, as if he’s deaf.

Granted, we both started to trust him about it because he wouldn’t talk. But we’re still a little wary. He walks out of his little office and grabs all the English tracts out of the mailboxes and throwing them at us and on the ground. My companion starts to get defensive and picks them up. The man kind of ignores him, but waves and points at his own ears every time my companion talks.

My companion was standing directly behind him.

At about this point, the guanliyuan’s friend shows up and starts calling his name. The guanliyuan turns around to look at the guy, and talks to him. Mr. Guanliyuan waves frantically at him to get him to stop talking. Mr. Friend says “Why are you acting so weird? What’s wrong?” Mr. Guanliyuan mumbles “Later.” Or some equivalent to his friend. His friend gets all confused and is like “umm… okay? Weirdo.”

We walk away as Mr. Friend walks into Mr. Guanliyuan’s office. We get on our bikes and ride away to the sounds of two friends laughing together and chatting from the building behind us.

Many confused looks were exchanged that day.