wwe

Went to restaurant on Saturday. Appetizer was burned. Sent it back. Entree was burned. Sent it back. Waiter argued with us, but finally took it back. Finished dinner. Paid the bill. Sat at table talking.

After about five minutes, the waiter comes back and taps me on the shoulder. "Excuse me, sir, I don't mean to bother you ...." (points to the total bill) "it's supposed to be 15%...."

I look at him. Then back to the check. Then back at him. "Yeah, 15% pre-tax."

He looks at the bill, recalculates it in his head, then says "Don't worry about it."

I won't.

ru guo ni yo addictions . . .

Last week, a group from my church went to help out at a soup kitchen. Shortly after arriving, I was asked if I was bilingual. I foolishly replied, "Yes, in Mandarin." Turns out, since it's close to Chinatown, a lot of the people that come only understand their native language and they need to translate everything from English into Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

The last time I spoke Mandarin was when I lived in Taiwan, back in 2004. At first, I frantically tried to find someone to replace me, but finally someone from church convinced me my Mandarin was probably good enough. He even wrote a cheat sheet for me for some of the words that he knew would be brought up like "health care", "unemployment", "social security", and "food stamps".

We all had to stand on the stage and translate everything the pastor said. At first it was just simple instructions, like "Welcome, eat as much as you like, don't take any food home, Jesus loves you, etc." Then he started praying. And then gave a 5 minute sermon.

At the end he reminded people that we could help them if they had any problems and needed someone to talk to. Obviously I didn't know how to translate every word, so I ended up saying things like "ru guo ni yo addictions, ...". (if you have any addictions)

Someone later pointed out that I got all the easy words right and basically left out all the important words. If I were translating into English, it would be like "if you have any ______ we can help you. Or if you have any questions about ______, just come to the ______. If you can't speak English we will be offering English ______ at 10:30. Go to that door."

Moral of the story - find out what they need translated before admitting you know another language.

family tree

KL: "One of my ancestors was on the Mayflower. He fell off the ship."
me: "I believe it."
KL: "Another ancestor was the pilot of the Hydenberg."
me: "This is not helping you."

subtle hints

(day after daylight savings)

KL: "What time is it?"
YS: "It's late. You need to go to bed."
KL: "You're right. It's 10:15. But that's really 11:15 according to my biological clock."
me: "You mean your internal clock?"