Chinese Talking English

(This is what real Chinese people look like.)

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I’m related to a lot of Chinese people and these are some of the things I’m privy to:

• “Son, don’t wave with your egg roll.”

My 8 year-old cousin usually needs to be told by his parents to say goodbye to relatives who are saying goodbye to him instead of ignoring them. That time, he half-assed his goodbye by waving and not speaking because he was distracted from eating an egg roll. The above-quoted line is the result of such incidence.

• “Why don’t you wear your Doctor Martens today?”

My aunt said that to her husband. Don’t worry, I made sure I laughed at her and had her repeat after me, “Doc Martens” several times.

• “Whitney’s soup 8/9/2011”
  

The day I came across this Post-it note, I developed a fear bigger than my fear of dogs (it’s called cynophobia* and it is very real). It appeared as though Whitney’s soup had been found and, therefore, my blogging purpose was no longer valid. I mean, I started my blog mission on July 2nd – a blog that only lasts 5 weeks? That’s unheard of. Once a blog has begun, it’s meant to last for ages. Surely, I was in disbelief.

I dealt with this newfound anxiety the same way I deal with all my anxiety issues: I emailed/texted a picture of the note to all my friends (another fear I have is that I die without my friends knowing every detail of my day-to-day life [which stems from my other fear of dying, suddenly, at any given moment, as opposed to when I’m averaged to at age 81.58 or from an actual cause of death]) with the subject, “No Joke,” and then panicked, held my breath, eventually breathed out, eventually breathed in, eventually breathed in and out repeatedly, and then before I knew it, it was time for bed. Long story short: Someone pissed me off the next day, giving me something to write about. My blog still serves a purpose.

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Because I “don’t eat meat,” one of my relatives left this note next to a bowl of soup for me to distinguish from other soup I may come across. Because I “don’t eat meat,” at Thanksgiving, these above-mentioned Chinese people have me sit at “the kids table,” or what is really, “the discriminated table,” which consists of the 2 kids and the anorexic. The note helps remind me that I am distinguished, as I “don’t eat meat.”

I don’t know why the note is dated. Must be a Chinese thing.

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 *The American Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming defines cynophobia as an anxiety disorder in which one becomes irrationally nervous and uneasy regardless of whether or not the dog presents a legitimate threat.

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