Monday, September 28, 2009

I've Been Speaking Too Much Chinese Lately

I wrote an email earlier today to The Rejecter asking a very serious question. (To me, at least. It's one of those things that I really want to know, yet am afraid to ask anyone but an anonymous person.)

However, in the subject line, I used the phrase "Is, or is it not?" IN ENGLISH. I wasn't even thinking. I read back over my email later and I thought, hmm. Could have written it better, but the kids were yelling at me so oh well I guess it could have been worse. Then I saw the subject line. IS OR IS IT NOT???? Who am I? Goddamn Hamlet?

But in Chinese, you say hua bu hau all the time. Please excuse my horrible pinyang. I neither read nor write characters or pinyang. I can only understand the language verbally. Give me a book in Chinese, I'm useless. Sit me down at a mahjongg table and I'm your girl. (Don't get me wrong. A Chinese person could still talk circles around me. But I'm probably the only blond haired blue eyed girl there who can eavesdrop on the Chinese ladies talking shit about the other people walking Greenlake.) But you never know! Maybe there's a large, secret group of us and we don't know about each other yet. Ooh! What a nice idea for a novel. Wait. Done that.

So anyway. I really would like a serious answer from The Rejecter to my question, but would I answer an email from someone with "Is or is it not?" in the subject line? Is her first thought going to be "Oh! I bet she was thinking in Chinese and writing in English!" Um, sure. Sure it is. No, it's going to be "What a fucking freak."

Great.

2 comments:

  1. Sorry, Too Cute, but I don't see anything wrong with that subject line. Perfectly good English.

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  2. Really? You don't think? It sounds super cheesy to me, like the title of some overblown 50s game show. [Is! Or is it not? Now, here's your host, Morey Amsterdam!]

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