adamaaa

What's this smell? ...


Eh...Why is this "English Corner" posted in this subforum? Or is it also posted elsewhere?

I suggest there be a brand new subforum for this EC, so that not only the Bochumers, but also other students in Germany, or even students outside Germany, can contribute to it as well as benefit from it. That's of course the kind of thing that only you "Forum Master General" guys can do...We could post anything we want (in English of course) e.g. News, jokes, and other fun stuff and discuss them, we could also ask and answer questions, so that we actually learn from eath other... That must be fun.

Apropos jokes, I have one, and it's a true story. Here it is:

A few months ago, the company where I have been working part-time hired a guy from somewhere in Middle East. He was about my age, maybe two or three years yonger, and he really shocked me by calling me. Guess what? He called me "Meister"! And he did it all the time!

"Hallo, Meister, wie geht's dir..."
"Hey, Meister, komm mal her, ich zeige dir was..."
...

I first thought the guy was somehow not "in Ordnung", mentally, I mean. Then I observed him carfully, and found out that he said "Meister" only to us Chinese, and ONLY to male Chinses whose age was about the same as his or above. That led to the question "why". Here is my thought:

Some Chinese guy must have told him how courteous we Chinese are and how we use the polite word "师傅". e.g. "师傅，麻烦给我打份红烧肉。" The problem is, there is no exact counterpart of this word in English, the closest one is "master", and because the Chinese guy (most probably) speaks perfect Chinglish and (most probaly)doesn't know the difference between "师傅" and "master", he must have taught the pour arab this way.

So everytime when this arab guy greeted me, I would say "Mir geht's bestens." (Why wouldn't I?) and make sure I wouldn't laugh out loud...

It's been a few months now, and I find it more and more difficult to control myself not to laugh. But I won't ask him directly why he calls me so , coz I really hate to hurt his feelings.

[ 本帖最后由 adamaaa 于 2008-8-30 03:33 编辑 ]