#47 This one’s for the ladies
Ever have one of those gut-wrenching, painfully embarrassing moments? I’ve had my fair share but this week I heard a friend tell a China story that’s for the history books. It’s so good that I moved this week’s wrap-up from Friday to Wednesday just so we can send you laughing your way through the rest of your week! (Warning – it’s hilarious yet a bit off-color as well. Listener discretion advised!)
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Show Notes
This week’s stats and updates
It’s Wednesday and I’m throwing in a monkey wrench of a podcast just so you can laugh your way through the rest of the week. I tried really hard to get some pertinent lessons from the story that I’m going to tell you but really in the end, it’s simply a hilarious illustration of what living in China can be like as a foreigner, as a ‘laowai’, and I’m sure you too probably can relate to this ridiculousness. If nothing else, by the end of this episode you will feel better that you’re not the only one that crazy things happen to in China.
First, I suppose I should do a weekly wrap up, well half-weekly wrap up I guess. We’re up to over 7600 downloads and have a couple of really neat partnerships on the horizon. The first is with NLP and coaching expert Adrian Cahill. If you’ve not checked out his podcast yet you definitely should to get to know him. He and I will be putting together a mini-series of short topical podcasts with you, the laowai, in mind. They’ll be chocked full of really practical, mindful, coaching tips you can follow to improve your personal and work life in China.
Secondly, for all you ladies out there, look for more info on an upcoming event called Women in Leadership brought to us by Roberto & Co. in partnership with the Shanghai Business Review. I’ll be partnering in multiple ways with the founder, Amir Roberto, interviewing a few of his powerhouse speakers and helping him spread the word of the great work he’s doing in Shanghai, motivating and empowering all of us ladies. Whether you’re in the corporate sector, are full-on into an entrepreneurial endeavor or are an @home mama looking to better lead your next generation, this event is for you. Info on the event and registration can be found here. And when you register for the event, and make sure you put the code ‘Limitless’ in the DISCOUNT box AND YOU’LL GET 10% OFF YOUR TICKET PRICE!
Register for Women in Leadership Forum here
(Put ‘Limitless’ in the DISCOUNT box A RECEIVE 10% OFF YOUR TICKET PRICE)
OK now into the meat of the story. Have you ever had a moment in China where you found you’ve just massively stuck your foot in your mouth? I’ve had a couple. I used to work for PetroChina as an English teacher in a rather rural city of a million in Liaoning province in the northeast of China. I taught intensive 4-month-long English classes for engineers who were getting ready to go abroad. I had a very strict no-Chinese policy in my classroom except at break times and I loved using that time to practice my newly learned Chinese vocabulary. Well one day we were discussing how I don’t wear enough clothes to weather the tough Liaoning winters and how they all sweat in class because I turn on the heater and they’re sitting there with 5 layers on. So I was trying to say that I wasn’t alone in my non-layering insanity and in fact, not very many Americans wear long underwear on a daily basis. Except, that I said, that not very many Americans wear underwear on a daily basis, and I knew immediately I had said something amiss when half the ladies in my very conservative, very countryside class turned beat red and started giggling under their breath. So today’s story is a bit like that, but worse I think.
So here goes: A friend of mine (she will most certainly remain nameless, for reasons you’ll understand in a moment) shared a story last night that had a group of us girls in absolute stitches. She woke up one morning with a bit of discomfort, ya know, down there and self-diagnosed that she had a yeast infection. Before heading to the most western pharmacy around, she did her due diligence and looked up the Chinese word for ‘yeast infection’. Feeling pretty good about it all, she heads to the pharmacy, thinking she’ll show the pharmacist the slip of paper, and be on her merry way. Well, this is China and Murphy’s Law most absolutely applies here, so this is what happened next.
She walks to the counter, and on the sly, she shows the pharmacist the Chinese for yeast infection. She’s like counting down the minutes til she can get outta there. In the west, we don’t really go around telling the world our medical problems, especially those that have to deal with ya know, sensitive parts. Well, this is not the case in China, as we’ll soon find out.
For some odd reason (maybe so I could record this in podcast), the pharmacist doesn’t understand the Chinese words that she has looked up. Luckily, this must happen a lot so she has my friend type the English into her fancy dancy computer and another, more technical English word pops up along with the translation.
My friend is relieved because by now my friend was getting a bit anxious. People are milling around the pharmacy – mostly Chinese but this whole process is definitely taking too long and becoming way too complicated for her liking. She was starting to feel like they were making progress.
Well the pharmacist must be a curious learner because despite it’s length and complexity she obviously wanted to learn the new word that has popped up as a translation. And ya know, like Dictionary.com where there’s that little button that you can press to the side of a vocab word and an electronic voice reads the word for you. To be honest, it’s a super awesome feature, especially when you have a super complex word like VAGINITIS. Suddenly, out of nowhere my friend hears her ailment not just whispered by computer speakers but broadcasted through the entire PA system all across the pharmacy. The pharmacist had pushed that button! And how often do us native English speakers get the word right on the first try? No, no I always press that little button over and over again. Well so did she: VAGINITIS. VAGINITIS. VAGINITIS. VAGINITIS. VAGINITIS. Yup, at least five times it goes out over the PA, and at this point my friend who’s dying inside turns around and to make matters worse spots another expat family with younger kids in the pharmacy searching for something in the shelves. I think she caught eye contact with the mom or dad, I don’t know and to be honest we couldn’t hear the rest of the story because we were laughing so hard.
So, like I said before, while I couldn’t really pull a pertinent lesson or moral out of the story, I’m positive that you have a woman in your life, somewhere around the world, that really needs a good laugh right now as a salve over a hurt, challenge or struggle that they’re facing. So why don’t you forward this one on and make her day?
