But will it play in Peoria?

November 7, 2006 - 9:21 AM by Sarah

An Israeli studying Chinese riffs on “The small differences between studying Chinese in China and in Israel”:

“Oh, this text you can not study in China…” they said.

Last week while in the university I met the Chinese students between classes for a quick lunch and showed them the text that we were studying. The text was very basic, considering the fact that we’re suppose to be second year level. They looked at the paper, giggled a little at what I thought was the level of Chinese saying that “it was kids stuff” but then they agreed that “this text you can not study in China”. Here, have a look :

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????????,?????,?????? ??????????:??? ????????: ????????????????????????,?????????? ???????,????: ???,????? ??????????????? ???: ????????? ???: ????????????? ? ?????????????,?????????????????????;????????,???????

The text is about a bet between William (wei1 lian2) and Luke (Lu4 ke4) that William can kiss Mali (Ma3 Li4), and in which William does a double bet and a small trick to get a kiss with Mali and win the bet with Luke. Now, the Israeli student enjoys this kind’o stuff as it spices up the classes a bit, especially if you need to practice saying it. We really wouldn’t think too much of it. Apparently, my Chinese friends thought this wouldn’t work as well in China, which had us discussing Confucian society vs. the somewhat sexually open and outgoing Israeli society – so much that the outgoing behavior is incorporated in our text books. Since the teacher who gave us this text studied in Taiwan, it wouldn’t surprise me that she borrowed this story from Taiwan or some other place outside Israel, and yet the response about how this text would work in China/Taiwan and other Confucian societies is what’s interesting.

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