A Day in the Life

In the past week, my apartment has slept anywhere from one to seven people on any given night. And that just gives you an idea of the Grand Central Station nature of my apartment.

 

I took a trip last week to visit some old college classmates in another city, a few hours from here. Tons of fun! It was a refreshing break from the routine and responsibilities of life in Shenyang. As I headed home from the train station upon arriving back in town, however, I knew I needed to be prepared… Eleven p.m. in my apartment could be anything. And I mean that quite literally. Absolutely anything could be going on, from nobody being home to having a houseful, from all sound asleep to excited dancing and screaming, from warm and friendly to tense and argumentative. Anything.

 

This time it was extra people. Two American girls here for a brief visit. I totally love meeting all the foreigners who trickle in and out of this city, and usually enjoy having the girls stay with us. I just feel bad for them that they get stuck sleeping out in the living room, which I end up traipsing through at completely ungodly hours of Saturday morning as I get ready for work. And our living room floor creaks. A lot.

 

But a creaking floor isn't the only noise that may keep the girls up tonight or in the morning. Today we have a Chinese lady and her 8 month old baby staying with us as well. The kid is as cute as can be… as long as there's no crying or screaming involved. Which, for an 8 month old, is not often the case.

Chinese kids really are cute, though. Teaching my handful of them today, I was reminded of my old eighth grade Spanish class. My teacher was quite laid back and let us get away with a lot – as long as it involved Spanish. So I remember the studious boys in the class getting really excited about looking up insults in their dictionaries so they could say the craziest or silliest insult to the next person. Not that there was any actual meanness to it. It was just fun.

 

I'm not sure how much meanness was behind my nine year olds today, but two of the boys were definitely insulting each other and calling each other names (in Chinese) in the way that so many nine year old boys do. Now my Chinese is alright, but when it comes to insults, I'm a bit behind the learning curve. But no problem: we have a rule in our class that we're only supposed to speak English. So I avoided dealing with the actual insulting going on by simply enforcing that they had to speak English only.

 

And to that, the one boy turned to the other and said in the same insulting tone of voice: "You're a piece of cake."

 

Yup, pretty sure he doesn't really know what that phrase actually means in English! I definitely cracked a smile at that one. Sometimes it's so hard to be the responsible adult in a situation and not just laugh with everyone else!

 

So lesson learned? Next time someone is getting on your nerves, just go ahead and say it. "You're such a piece of cake."