Foreign Fun
My two favorite episodes of "foreigner having trouble with american common language" at work are as follows:
1. An indian vegetarian guy at work who has some paranoia issues with milk, while describing some of the (perceived?) negative ways in which milk is processed, said: "...and they add things to it, and it makes it kinky." After making an ineffectual attempt to hide my laughter, I felt it my duty to let him know that, while his usage of the word was technically correct, most americans only use that term in a sexual sense. I let the younger indian grad student who is a little more hip explain exactly what kinky in a sexual sense means. With examples. It was almost as frightening as it was amusing.
2. That same grad student (remember, I said a little more hip, not completely hip) asked at lunch today, "So - what's a sugar daddy?" After a complete lack of an attempt to hide my laughter, I and the only other american at the table explained it to him, which then led the conversation to sugar mommas, gigolos, cougars, and milfs. And the taiwanese girls didn't know what a milf was and we then had to explain it them. Probably not the best discussion to have had in the cafeteria of a children's hospital. :p
Yesterday was John's and my fourth anniversary (all together now: awwwwww), and instead of splurging on one really expensive dinner like we did last year, we had two and a half reasonably priced meals: one korean lunch, one indian dinner, and a basket-load of pastry varieties from a korean bakery for us to sample when we got home. It was delicious.
1. An indian vegetarian guy at work who has some paranoia issues with milk, while describing some of the (perceived?) negative ways in which milk is processed, said: "...and they add things to it, and it makes it kinky." After making an ineffectual attempt to hide my laughter, I felt it my duty to let him know that, while his usage of the word was technically correct, most americans only use that term in a sexual sense. I let the younger indian grad student who is a little more hip explain exactly what kinky in a sexual sense means. With examples. It was almost as frightening as it was amusing.
2. That same grad student (remember, I said a little more hip, not completely hip) asked at lunch today, "So - what's a sugar daddy?" After a complete lack of an attempt to hide my laughter, I and the only other american at the table explained it to him, which then led the conversation to sugar mommas, gigolos, cougars, and milfs. And the taiwanese girls didn't know what a milf was and we then had to explain it them. Probably not the best discussion to have had in the cafeteria of a children's hospital. :p
Yesterday was John's and my fourth anniversary (all together now: awwwwww), and instead of splurging on one really expensive dinner like we did last year, we had two and a half reasonably priced meals: one korean lunch, one indian dinner, and a basket-load of pastry varieties from a korean bakery for us to sample when we got home. It was delicious.