Saturday, November 12, 2005

Fashion Trend ni Autumn















Hospitable midsummmer pass by, fresh and co. With what kind of posture will city young women make autumn colurful? Graceful, handsome and dashing ANMANI will beco gic weapons of women in this autumn.


So I know that "haha, China has signs in bad English" isn't really insightful commentary.... but, well, 2 things:
#1. Insightful commentary isn't what I'm here for, is it? It's not an insight blog. It's just news.
#2. I like the picture.

News:
-The classes I'm teaching are going well. I teach mostly grade 7 and 8, but I have other classes that run from grade 2 to grade 9, so that means I spend a lot of time making lesson plans (in my head, if not on paper).
-This week I'm bringing my guitar in to classes and we're going to sing. I'm not sure what, but I'm thinking of just making some songs up. For the youngsters, anyway. The high-schoolers are too cool for things like happy music. Lame.
-One of the schools' regulations is that in class I "Respect the sovereignty on the People's Republic of China and not interfere in the internal affairs of the P.R.C." No comment.
-I'm eating great. Lots of eggplant and spicy tofu.
-I bought 2 persimmons, thinking they were tomatoes. Persimmons??
-Learning Chinese is proceeding apace. It's still going to take a long time. It's hard. But fun.

Now for Andrew Heining's request:

The chorus to Tiny Flashlight was originally written by our friend Ben Doerr, about the flashlight of our camper, Noah, that ran on one AA battery. The verses were later freestyled by Ben, Andrew Heining, me, and my brother Benjamin, all co-counselors together in the incomparable summer of 2001.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re: tiny flashlight, Ah, I love it. Good times those were, even though that's not evidenced by my expression in the accompanying picture... What I wouldn't give to be in that tent with you guys right now ... no, I mean, it was fun ... no, I mean those were good times. stopit, sicko.
There are whole sites devoted to signage that sails right past clarity, into weirdness. http://www.syberpunk.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?page=engrish is one, but it's sightings of stuff from Japan.

Anonymous said...

My friends and I often thought that someone could make a lot of money correcting crazy signage like that in China. Maybe you could quit your teaching job and start your own bussiness... I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard over there :)

Lizzie

ps: love the Tiny Flashlight!!

FU said...

i was raised in hong kong, taiwan and thailand... everything of mine had bad english on it. my pencil cases, my rulers, my erasers, my clothes. everything!

go happy lucky dog jump! happy now! happy! cupcake!

Alice said...

have you ever been to www.engrish.com? you should check it out ;-)

Unknown said...

mmmmm persimmons! you need to peel the skin off and slice it into wedges. it's fabulous with a good sauvignon blanc. can you get that in china?....lol. it also makes great tarts and pies. i love them, obviously, they are the harbinger of autumn for me. i hope you liked them.

Anonymous said...

Matty! I love love love your blog!!!
The photos are great and, again, I adore listening to the music. I just had "Tiny Flashlight" cranked (it is, after all, afer 1am at the office and I'm here alone.)

I finally added the link to my favorites so I'll be checking back.

Hunan Grill*,
Susannah

*that would be the extent of my Chinese!

Anonymous said...

Nice! I've been down here at the South Pole waiting for Tiny Flashlight to guide me... actually the sun is up 24 hours at this point, so I guess I don't need it just yet. But the song does warm my hart and takes me back to that oh, so, glorious time at Camp.
Hey, I just got interviewed by a radio staion in Seattle about the South Pole. Check it out at www.bobrivers.com.
I had fun visiting a friend in China for (US) Thanksgiving a few years ago. What a country.
Ciao!

S said...

hey Matt, go check out my blog!

Jess said...

i make lessons plans up in my head all the time... mainly cause the kindergarteners can't pay attention for very long...

Japhet said...

HOLY CARP! You moved to China. Jeez...is it hip or something to do that cause three of my friends from high school (I shutter to call them friends now) did the same this past year. So yeah, I've been a naughty American and haven't bothered to view your blog in the past two months. I'd say I'm busy saving the world but that just sounds egotistical and rude. Actually, it sounds that way no matter if I say it or not.
Obviously, I won't be seeing you anytime soon (unless I decide to move to Big Red or you get evac'd for bird flue fears). Btw, don't fear the flu. Its all hype. My two buds in Guangzhou say its under control...in certain locales.

The monkey in the zoo thing..yeah I had the same experience in Nepal. It's like you're an alien and just crashed your U.S.S. Enterprise in someone's back yard. Piece of advice: try staring back at them for as long as possible...its a fun game of who can hold it the longest without cracking up. The best are older women--they usually laugh the hardest.

Keep me posted on enviros in Montreal who might want to meet some enviros from San Francisco.

And since I missed one of the biggest announcements on your blog since its launch, you can bet I'll be back a bit more frequently. AND you were on my lake! Champlain that is...as a monkey in a zoo would say...me jealous.

khris said...

ohhhhh i LOVE to death kaki!!!
it's sad i don't find them in the US. actually there is no variety of fruit in the US as there is in brazil. LAME.


take care xoxo :)

Anonymous said...

On the subject of "Tiny Flashlight"...I'm walking down the streets of Seattle one day and this whole crowd (maybe 40 or 50 people) standing outside the Paramount Theatre see me and scream, "That's one of the tiny flashlight guys! AHAHAHAHAAH!!" And they started running after me down the city streets. I ducked into a starbucks and couldn't find cover so I ran across the street to another starbucks and was able to get away. Phew! Ok, that never happened, but it could.

-Ben