Chinese Class

The books we use in my Chinese class are pretty hilarious sometimes.  Lately, the books have instructed me with such useful phrases as:

"Excuse me, do you know how many children I have?"
"I would like to introduce you to my lover."
"Here are two Americans, one of them is my friend, the other is not my friend."
"I like capable people."
"We all know that he has lots of money."
"Your girlfriends are certainly numerous."

The book also contains sample conversations that depict everyday occurrences, such as commissioning paintings, debating the relative merits of watches vs. clocks, and buying tape recorders.  One entire conversation is devoted to discussing a shady figure named Mr. Zhang, who is rumored to have a very attractive girlfriend.  Really, quite a lot of emphasis is put on the supposed girlfriend's high level of attractiveness.  In a surprise twist at the end of the conversation, the reticent Mr. Zhang reveals that he doesn't even have a girlfriend and that his more talkative friend Mr. Li has been spreading these rumors to their mutual friends.  Now that's what I call drama.

We recently learned country and city names.  According to the book, the names for most Asian countries have "historical or literary meaning".  Some of these I was familiar with, such as the "Land of the Rising Sun" for Japan.  However, I was unaware that North Korea is historically referred to as the "Land of Morning Freshness".  The book then goes on to discuss the names of Western countries, which are apparently chosen to represent a pleasant or flattering quality of the country in question.  Here are a few:

USA: The Beautiful Country
England: The Brave Country
Germany: The Virtuous Country

However, I am learning some useful Chinese, and these phrases are great for amusing my Chinese speaking friends and colleagues.  Actually, this book is not the worst language book I've ever had.  That prize goes to one of the Danish books I had early on in the Rotary sponsored language courses that all the exchange students attended.  This book was originally meant for Middle Eastern adults who had immigrated to Denmark.  Our favorite phrase from this book was "What is your caseworker's name?", and we proceeded to repeat this phrase ad nauseam until it drove our language teachers crazy.  Last summer, I visited one of my old friends who was also an exchange student and in the same language class - she had forgotten most of the Danish she had learned, but this phrase was still very clear in her mind!