Oh, Engrish!

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

I Love Engrish.

The language barrier can be your best friend (funny stories, heckling without worrying that the people you are heckling actually know what you are talking about) or your worst enemy (you're seriously in trouble or you're dating someone who doesn't speak the language...which I guess are both one in the same).

Miscommunication is often a source of jokes in my classes, even in the more advanced levels.

The no-bajee (no pants) story, for example.
Or "panty-gone" or the strangely disturbing "red pen tea."

Or "Teacher I am detention."
"Hello detention."

I even had one girl who still says "son of a bitch!"...she knows it's bad, but her dad says it so so does she.

One of our friends, Chantal, had a tiny 7 or 8-year-old ask her,
"Teacher, what is pimpin and why so difficult?"
(A reference to Big Daddy Kane's "Pimpin Ain't E-Z"...oh what these children have to look up to...)

Also from Chantal...have you ever seen a 7 or 8-year-old wearing a shirt that proudly proclaims: "Sex Terrorist. Got the Skills to Pay the Bills"? I haven't either, but apparently he's out there.

Today I had a student yell for me to "TEACHER! Come! Here! Please!" Another kid piped in "Come on baby!"...apparently a reference to a Korean computer game.

We receive about 50-70 essays apiece every other week full of secret codes for English words such as "I'm get a love whip."

There is even a website dedicated to nothing but Engrish from all over the Orient (although Japan seems to have the most difficulty...). www.engrish.com

But yesterday, we noticed some graffiti scrawled all over the wall outside of Avalon, right by the doors.
I do not know who this "Kevin" person is...I actually have about 50 students named Kevin, not to mention the other 200 that go to Avalon (ok so that's an exaggeration...like saying eleventy billion).

So I'm not sure who this is talking about:

I sincerely hope this is not true...none of our students are older than 13. And Korean children are MUCH more innocent than Americans. These kids love poopoo jokes. I've seen Korean comedy. You would think it was written by the same 10-year-olds that I teach every day.

Well...I thought it was funny anyway.