Tag Archives: English

Oh My English

2 Oct

Local Chinese restaurants in Malaysia are awesome especially those that are family-owned. While their food and cooking are really good, the same cannot be said for their English to attract patrons.

These two restaurants that we have been to recently are perfect examples of what I mean.

I am not too sure what is a ‘Chicken Cute’ on the menu. Chicken Cubes? Then right above this category is another eyebrow-raising item: Hong Kong style pig Sharpei! Goodness gracious. Are they serving Sharpeis? It’s too hilarious and a challenge trying to figure these out.

Then at another restaurant, they had a banner at their entrance listing ‘Pork Crab’ besides Marmite Crab and Sweet Sour Crab, the last two being the cooking style. ’Pork Crab’ certainly does not sound like a cooking style. And we know there’s pork and there’s crab but ‘Pork Crab’? What is it?

After a while, I finally understood what it meant. It’s a direct translation from the Chinese phrase that actually meant ‘Meaty Crab’!

It’s always a delight to discover such places for their food and the unintended humour.

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Dang! She’s Good, Part 2

18 Sep

I don’t recall English classes during the dinosaur years in high school was fun although I remember the teacher back then was nice and I liked her. Homework assignments were dull and boring. Ho hum.

English classes during college was certainly more fun and entertaining. But as far as I can remember, it was all about writing, creative writing and more writing.

Unlike M2’s recent English class assignment. It certainly was very different and a lot more fun because the class had to cook. English class, cooking? Go figure!

The teacher grouped the students and each group had to choose a country to research on culture, economy and food. How this related to the language was probably the written and oral, and definitely perked up the class to stay interested.

The students then had weekly show and tell sessions and the ultimate presentation was the food; each group had to cook something during class at the Home Science workshop to showcase the country’s food.

M2’s group chose Thailand. It was all very interesting (they made Pad Thai, Banana pancake and Thai Iced Tea) but what impressed me more was the cooking menu that M2 drew.

Such meticulous details and skill! Even I can’t draw like that I must admit. I think the girl has potential to pursue art, specifically illustration.

Only the photo was color printed, the rest were hand-drawn

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I Can Math

1 Jul

M1 was happy with her results but feels that there’s room for further improvements especially on those subjects attaining ‘B’. M2, not to be outdone, declared that she did improve but M1 questioned her particularly on the languages.

“What did you get for English?” she challenged, “What did you get for Mandarin?” clearly think she had M2 cornered.

Unperturbed, M2 replied, “I did well in Math. So I speak Math!”

How does one speak Math? I am speechless.

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