Laughter

Today after church, I went down to the bookstore to get a friend one of the bilingual Bibles. I wanted to pick one up myself, so I told the lady I wanted two books.

In Chinese, there are words called “measure words.” They are exclusively used after a number to denote the KIND of thing. There is a general, catchall word, but it is more appropriate if you use the proper word. So far I know the measure words for cups, bottles, books, pieces of meat (or just chicken, I haven’t figured that out yet), paper, desks, money, and probably a few other things I am forgetting. It roughly translates as two “things” or “units” and if you know the specific one, then it would be just like saying, “I’ll have two PIECES of chicken,” or “I’ll have two BOOKS.” Now most the time I do not know the measure word, so I just use the general word, which is fine. However, when I do know it, I try to use the proper one. They like that.

So, when I asked for two books, I used the general measure word. However, after a second I realized I KNOW the measure word for books, so I corrected myself by saying two books with the proper book measure word.

The lady burst out in laughter.

Now, this was not a patronizing, your-an-idiot laugh as much as the he-actually-said-something-correctly laugh. Well, I like to think of it that way. I think she was giggling because when I correct myself I purposefully pronounced both words very clearly and exaggerated the tones.

Anyway, that just made my day. I had this old woman in the church bookstore laughing for five minutes.

After that, we all went to a big Thai festival that was being held on campus. In our building alone, there are tons of Thai students. This year they had a public celebration of the Loi Kratong festival, which is a full moon type lantern festival. It seems every culture has some sort of fall/full moon festival. Ours may not be a full moon, but merely full stomachs. Anyway, they had an international beauty pageant that three of our girls were in. One of them is half-Chinese, the other full-blooded Mexican, and the third is just … white. Anyway, we went out and supported and cheered for them as they looked beautiful.

I stayed away from the Thai food, however. Twice going to Thailand and twice getting food poisoning tends to give one a physical aversion to the food.