Be Careful of Head

So, I mentioned before that awkward translations and language gap SNAFU's tickle my funny bone here in China. Well get a load of this. First, imagine a Chinese Snow White---very pure, innocent, gentile, feminine. This is my teacher Gu Laoshi. She wears a lot of pink, silk and lace and always has her hair up in librarian fashion. Her voice is soft and sounds like scoops of bubble gum ice cream on velvet pillows. Get the picture?

Okay, well the other day, we were having a language gap discussion in class---Gu often asks us how to pronounce certain English words because she is trying to improve her skills, too. Halfway through what started as a completely appropriate chat, she abruptly turned to the board and chalked the words "beach" and "bitch." In her newborn kittens-voice she says, "Bitch... bitch. They sound same. I don't know what you say."

Shocked, we slapped our hands over our mouths, blushed and giggled like small children. Then, while we were still blacking out over this innocent display of vulgarity, she turned again and wrote the words, "sheet" and "shit." She pointed at them with her cotton candy fingers and said, "Shit....shit. They sound same to me. I get confused. Like when someone say they put shit on the bed, I think oh, that a surprise, hee hee hee."

By this time we had fallen out of our chairs and were howling with laughter. Giggling as sparrows tweeted around her head and bunnies gathered at her feet, Gu Laoshi decided to give us a lesson on how to write these naughty words in Chinese. This was just too much. Our teacher, who is made of angel feathers and lotus blossoms, scrawled profanity all over the board like a juvenile delinquent spray painting an underpass wall.

Long story short, I now know how to write dog shit, bitch, piss and ass. I hope it's not on the test. After class, as if the day couldn't get any better, we went to the mall for lunch. As we were coming down the escalator, there was a sign over head that was translated to English as "Be Careful of Head." Chinese people may look innocent, but don't let them fool you. They are an ornery bunch.