Mark’s Mother-in-law’s Guide To Mandarin Chinese

Mark’s mother-in-law is probably one of the nicest ladies one could ever meet. In his earlier days in Singapore, Mark’s mother-in-law spent countless hours cooking home made Chinese food for him, and bestowed upon him the valuable life lesson that once you’re feeling full, that means you’re only using 10% of your stomach’s capacity and you will proceed to be fed until it reaches 100%.

She is also full of other life lessons. For example, take this important one about ordering sausages in public if you’re a ‘decent’ girl:

When ordering sausages in public, girls must ask for: “一个香肠” … and NEVER: “一条香肠.”

The Chinese language being full of wonderful particles, that change given the shape and character of the object being counted, pretty much makes the sentence that includes the counter for long slim things (条, tiao) quite naughty indeed doesn’t it?

Apparently this applies to bananas too, which are naughty in just about any language. Ah, the joy of linguistic enlightenment.