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Chicken

Yesterday reminded me of when I studied Japanese at U.C.I. I remember for my Japanese 1C final, there was this long oral interview. Matsuura Sensei kept asking me things such as "what are you're summer plans" and "what classes are you going to take next quarter" and such. Of course, never having studied Japanese quite enough, I had to keep my answers simple, and easy for me to say. Summer plans: "I am going to take a trip. I am planning on taking a trip to the mountains. I also want to go to the beach many times". I knew that I wouldn't be going to the beach, or the mountains. What classes was I planning on taking? "I'm taking a math class." Did I have any idea how to say 'Foreign Policy of Southeast Asia" or "Israeli Political System"? Of course not. Its funny...language teachers are the ones we spend the most time with (language classes are everyday, not twice a week like other classes)...but do they really get to know us? We lie all the time!!! We lie because we literally do not know how to speak the truth!

So the reason I am reminded of this is because Thay Nam asked Oren yesterday "What did you eat for breakfest"? Oren said "Hom nay sang em an chao ga." or something like that...which means "today for breakfest I ate chicken porridge." Chicken is like the first food item that we learned in Vietnamese, so its easy to say, and sticks in our heads. The only thing is that this lie, unlike my "i'm going to the mountains and the beach" was unbelievable. The teacher was like "Chicken????". As we found out recently, the Vietnamese government banned chicken in Hanoi while we were taking our trip to the South. We are gone for a week, and come back, and chicken is now a blackmarket commodity. So eggs are also unavailable. Man, I'm gonna miss my eggs. Freaking avian flu. Anyways, it was funny, and from now on we will all know not to say that we ate chicken when asked about our meals. And maybe someday I'll go back to learning Japanese and be able to have a real honest conversation with Matsuura Sensei.

But for now, I better get back to my Tieng Viet homework, so that Thay Nam won't give me his 'you didn't study' glare. hehehe.

posted by Steffanie @ 11:26 AM