Foreign fun

In my line of work (that sounds very professional, doesn't it?), I have the opportunity to interact with many people from other countries. In fact, I think doing so is one of my gifts. My class is roughly 67% American, 33% foreign, and many of them are from China and Korea. This is their first time in America and their first time to use English on a daily basis. Their interviews were done by phone, so there wasn't even a test visit. Imagine how they must have felt the very first month here. That is when I met most of them. And once I met a few, they all started coming around. I was able to give advice on buying cars, to help with vocabulary and or just be a friend. It was really great and I enjoyed the opportunities. Even to this day, there is not one foreign person in my class who passes me in the hall without stopping to talk. That's so much better than all of the rest of us who tend to pass and say, "How are you doing?" even when we have no intention of waiting on an answer.

I was checking my email briefly before class was about to start this morning. As is my tendency, in exclamation at something I read, I said out loud, "Good honk!" One of my Korean classmates was sitting nearby, and he asked, "What did you say?" Then, "What does it mean?" That was fun to explain. I went on to say, "It's like 'good grief.'" He looked even more puzzled. Okay, how about "Oh my?" He nodded his head to indicate he understood that one. I told him it was just another exclamatory phrase that I picked up from my oldest sister oh so long ago. We practiced the pronunciation and inflection, and now he's added another great phrase to his vocabulary. :-)

The post-docs in my current lab are from China. Today we were talking about translating American names into Chinese. My name in Chinese is Kai Lin Lei Nuozi. Kai Lin is my first name which means victory, beautiful jade. My last name is Lei Nuozi and means thunder promise now. So I guess when there is a promise of thunder now, I will have victory if I wear beautiful jade. Hmm... that doesn't really make sense. And I don't particularly like the color of jade.

It was a fun day.