Fun with Foreigners
2018-04-10ByYiMing
By Yi Ming
Translation by Sam Bowden
I was walking around Beijing when a group of foreigners suddenly stopped me and asked,“Where is Heaven?”
Thinking that they were trying to preach to me I replied, “In your heart.”
They looked at me like I was mad.
It wasn’t until later that I realized that they were asking me about the Temple of Heaven.
我在北京大街上被一队老外拦下来,问我:“Where is the Heaven(天堂在哪)?
”我以为是传教的,就说:“In your heart(在你心里)。”
老外都疯了……
后来,我才知道他们在找天坛。
An American friend of mine was heading back to the States for a spell and asked me to take care of his cat while he was away. When he brought the cat over, he said to me, very sincerely,“Tony, please, whatever you do,please don’t eat him.” I went speechless: do all foreigners really believe that Chinese people will eat anything?
美国朋友要回国了,把养了很久的猫送给我养,送猫的时候非常诚恳地说了一句:“Tony,请你一定不要吃它。”我暗忖,难道老外认为我们中国人啥都吃吗?
One time I was accompanying a friend of a friend, an Italian guy, around Nanjing. We were strolling around the city and had made it to Fuzimiao where we stopped in front of the sign for the sight. We were there reading the description for the place and the Italian guy was looking intently at the Five-A rating, reading it aloud,“Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah,” confusedly asking me what it meant.
有次陪朋友的朋友、一个意大利老外逛南京。逛到夫子庙景区,我们在一块景区纪念碑前面停下来,看上面的介绍。那个意大利老外很认真地看着上面的5A级景区的“AAAAA”念道:“啊啊啊啊啊。”并很疑惑地问我们这是什么玩意儿。
I used to work at an R&D company that my Swedish coworker and I started in Shanghai.This Swede was six foot three and skinny as a rake. At that time,he’d only just arrived in Shanghai.One afternoon we went to a Sichuanese restaurant for lunch,we ordered a few different dishes to share and then the waitress brought over a big bucket of rice for us.
The Swede was quite astonished asking who was getting such a large “bowl” of rice. Without thinking about it I started joking around with him saying, “You are an important guest here. According to our customs: this rice is all for you.”He stretched his hands out,looking reluctant, “Your guys’customs here are quite peculiar.”
My phone rang just as I laughed at his comment. I stepped out to answer it and ended up chatting for a bit. When I came back about ten minutes later, the Swede had eaten up the entire bucket of rice.He sat there fixed, looking blankly at the empty “bowl,” telling me, “I finished it.” He was so full that he couldn’t even have a bite of any of the other food we ordered. After that I avoided him for many a day at lunch time, not daring to have lunch with him, feeling that I had wronged him.
我以前有一份工作是和瑞典的同事一起建立上海的研发中心。瑞典的这哥儿们193厘米的身高,瘦瘦高高,刚从瑞典来上海。中午我们一起去一家川菜馆吃饭,点了几个菜,然后服务员上了一大盆米饭(就是4人份的那种)。
这哥儿们很惊奇,问这么大一“碗”米饭谁吃,我就顺口开了个玩笑:“你是重要的客人,按这边的风俗,这些都是你一个人的。”这哥儿们双手一摊,面露难色说:“这边的风俗太奇特了。”
我笑笑,恰好电话响了,我出去接电话,多聊了几句,10分钟后回来,这哥儿们直接把一盆米饭吃完了,双眼发直,呆呆地看着那个空了的米饭“碗”,跟我说了一句:“吃完了。”他被米饭撑得三盘菜一口都没有吃。后来,好多天中午我都不敢和他一起吃饭,总感觉对不住他。◆