I have been travelling a lot for the past 2 months... finally got some time to update my blog!
My currently 8-year-old super-cute niece has been visiting me in the U.S. once a year since the age of 4. I taught her some survival English sentences while she was here (those English lessons they taught in kindergarten NEVER comes handy in real life...).
One important thing to ask is knowing how to go to the bathroom. So, I taught her: "Excuse me, where is the bathroom?"
Then, when you arrive in front of the bathrooms, try to recognize the sings printed on either door (if, unfortunately, they don't have the universal icons on the doors, e.g. pipe/tie for men, skirt/high heels for women). If you see W-O-M-E-N, which means girls, then you can go in. And the way to remember women is easy. The word women starts with a "W", which looks like women's breasts, then "O" look like a pretty face a woman has.
So, there she goes without any problem at all time. Until one day, she returned with an anxious facial expression.
"What's wrong? You couldn't find the bathroom?"
"No", she said, "I found it."
"So, what's the problem?"
" I couldn't find the word you told me on the door. I didn't know which one to go into..."
I followed her to the bathroom. And see only one word on each door, without any icons or graphs.
"Ladies"
"Gentlemen"
I pointed to the right one, and asked her while she was doing her business:
"Ning-zi", I said, " Now you still think you're too busy to take English classes?"
I'm glad to know that her mom has already enrolled her in an English class, starting this September. Hopefully, she'll be more literate when she visits me next year.
Same thing in Chinese. Sure I always taught my students to ask:
"Qing wen, ce suo zai na?" before they traveled to China as one of their survival Chinese sentences, and how to recgonize the words "nan(2) 男”and "nu(3) 女". But, look at the following signs I took on the bathroom doors in Taiwan.
Which one(s) you can't tell right away?
My currently 8-year-old super-cute niece has been visiting me in the U.S. once a year since the age of 4. I taught her some survival English sentences while she was here (those English lessons they taught in kindergarten NEVER comes handy in real life...).
One important thing to ask is knowing how to go to the bathroom. So, I taught her: "Excuse me, where is the bathroom?"
Then, when you arrive in front of the bathrooms, try to recognize the sings printed on either door (if, unfortunately, they don't have the universal icons on the doors, e.g. pipe/tie for men, skirt/high heels for women). If you see W-O-M-E-N, which means girls, then you can go in. And the way to remember women is easy. The word women starts with a "W", which looks like women's breasts, then "O" look like a pretty face a woman has.
So, there she goes without any problem at all time. Until one day, she returned with an anxious facial expression.
"What's wrong? You couldn't find the bathroom?"
"No", she said, "I found it."
"So, what's the problem?"
" I couldn't find the word you told me on the door. I didn't know which one to go into..."
I followed her to the bathroom. And see only one word on each door, without any icons or graphs.
"Ladies"
"Gentlemen"
I pointed to the right one, and asked her while she was doing her business:
"Ning-zi", I said, " Now you still think you're too busy to take English classes?"
I'm glad to know that her mom has already enrolled her in an English class, starting this September. Hopefully, she'll be more literate when she visits me next year.
Same thing in Chinese. Sure I always taught my students to ask:
"Qing wen, ce suo zai na?" before they traveled to China as one of their survival Chinese sentences, and how to recgonize the words "nan(2) 男”and "nu(3) 女". But, look at the following signs I took on the bathroom doors in Taiwan.
Which one(s) you can't tell right away?
