OOPS
So the other night I was typing and the rest of the group watched “Whale Rider” in the main room of the institute (like a big living room, which all of our rooms look down upon). I’d already seen it, and when Yamini got back late from her violin lesson we chatted about the day. She told me hilarious stories of horse rides in the desert (I couldn’t retell them, but I was rolling with laughter). Hmm, what else did we talk about? Men, but nothing too personal some other random stuff. Then I told her about the truck ride I’d taken back from main campus. I piled in to the back of the pickup with the rest of the students, and tried to make conversation as I half-sat on one of my Chinese classmates. “THAT WAS A CUTE BABY” I shouted awkwardly, cradling my arms, referring to one of the teacher’s infants he’d been holding at dinner. “Yes” he said, “I the father!” we all laughed at this unexpected joke in English. Then he turned to the beautiful Brazilian girl (woman, technically I guess, my age) next to him and said,
“and she the mother!” we all laughed and then she said,
”No, I’m the father, you’re the mother!” He quickly corrected her, making she he was using the correct words.We all laughed again, as i nearly fell out of the car.
At this story, Yamini of course laughed very hard, and we decided that this guy was really funny, if only he spoke more English. She told me another story of when he was poking fun at his Chinese compatriot, in regards to putting on a play involving “beautiful women” (one of our dramas involved a pretty woman who got paralyzed, and many jokes had been made in our rehearsals).
Okay, so finally I decided to go downstairs for a snack, when I opened the door, instead of hearing a loud movie, it was dead silent. I froze, our conversations running through my mind. They were watching the movie with subtitles, ahh, why hadn’t we notice how quiet it was??!! I rushed back up and told Yamini.
“Hmm, go outside and I’ll say something and see if you can hear.” I did.
“Okay can you hear me?” she asked. Before I could answer, my classmates downstairs shouted “Yes!” We were so embarrassed! We had been so loud and obnoxious. Luckily, due to our resolutions to remain positive, we hadn’t said anything sinister about anyone else, but I knew that when people hear their names, and lots of foreign words that are half understood, it could be mininterpretted. Luckily everyone just had fun laughing at us as we laughed at them, but i am more concientious now.
Tags: Thailand, Travel
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