General Musings

Firstly, I had two students describe to me The Lion King as part of their assignment. Both  young women told me that The Lion King was about a young lion whose father, the king of a mountain, was killed by a tiger. I've been scrambling to figure out whether or not somehow China changed this and, if they did, why? Or if, for some reason, that's how The Lion King comes across to Chinese people.

Secondly, you know how in America we say, "Hi, how's it going?" or "Hi, how you doing?" and then keep walking like we didn't ask a question even though we totally did? Turns out - and I've heard this from three separate students now - the Chinese version of this goes, "Have you eaten?" or "Have you had lunch?" Can't really put my finger on the usefulness of this of this particular colloquialism excepting to get a very specific answer.

Thirdly, does anyone else have this experience? You know someone - either you're friends with them or you date them - and the whole time you know them they're actually kind of boring? Like, they talk about doing fun, interesting things but they never actually do them? And then, for one reason or another, you're no longer in each other's lives and then, all of a sudden - or a couple days/weeks/months later - that person becomes as interesting as you wanted them to be when you were in each others lives. So, you're bemoaning something to the tune of, "Why weren't you like that when I actually wanted to talk you?" And then you realize that more than one person who you're not really close to anymore has that same affliction. And then you start to wonder if it's you who sucks the interesting out of people, but you realize it can't be you, because you're being interesting and, you know, living abroad and stuff. But nevertheless, in the back of your mind, you're kind of questioning, "Am I a fun leech?"