Crop Dusted in China

4.23.2008

Yesterday evening I scratched the slang I had planned to teach my students (nerd, dork, dweeb, doofus..) and taught them words from a whole different category: fart, toot, gas, butt, bottom, ass, booty, tush, buns...

I started with 'butt' and tried my best to describe the meaning with words to the 4 innocent Chinese women staring at me. "Buttocks? It's short for buttocks?"

Nope.

"Ummm, bottom? Does anyone know bottom?"

One girl sheepishly lifted her water bottle and pointed to the bottom of it. "Yes," I tell her, "but not quite what I'm going for."

Sigh. Okay. "It's this," I said and turned around and pointed.

"Ohhhh.."

"Alright. And these are all names for your butt... " I went onto pronounce each synonym for them. Moving on, "Now, 'fart' and 'toot' is slang for, um, when your butt makes noise."

Giggles.

"And when you have a lot of that going on, you say, 'I have gas.'"

More giggles.

"But, of course, us women never do such things."

Agreeing giggles.

I then preceded to tell them why I was teaching them such words: "These are very important slang words to know-- especially fart, toot, and gas. If you hear someone say, 'I just farted' or 'I have really bad gas' now you'll know to move away as quickly as possible," I darted across the room to demonstrate the suggested speed in which to remove yourself from such volatile situations. "However, the whole reason I decided to teach these words today is because of what just happened to my brother and I..."

Flash back to the day before, Tuesday, our "day off" [there is no such thing as a day off in China]. We were casually strolling through WalMart filling our already overflowing basket with god knows what and talking (most likely about the next ten items we'd throw in there). We turn the corner and--

"FLLLBBBPPRRRBBPPP!"

Collin and I throw each other a quick glance. "Did you just hear that?" he asks me.

"Yes!" It took a second to realize, but the old man standing in front of us (in a FOOD aisle nonetheless), just ripped one.

"Wow.." Collin said, "That was my first Chinese fart."

I, of course, could not contain my laughter at this statement. I completely lost it, right there in WalMart, right behind this gaseous old man. Did he know why we were laughing? Don't know. Don't care. He should feel a bit of shame for this deed.

Flash forward to the next day, one hour before my class. Collin and I are again walking and talking and minding our own business-- this time on a street in our neighborhood. Collin is discussing the craziness of battle between bikers and drivers: "Now, in Portland, if a car came that close to a cyclist--"

"FLLLBBBPPRRRBBPPP!"

Collin was literally stopped mid-sentence by the man in front of us. Again, an old man. Again, he didn't excuse himself or apologize. Again, he didn't break stride or even blink, for that matter.

We rushed past him because we were both laughing so hard we knew we'd offend him if he saw and heard us. [Why did we care about offending him? Not sure. The reverse was certainly not true]. Once we had a half block lead, we conferred through our chuckling.

"Two days in a row??! Two months and we never hear a single Chinese fart and now TWO days in a row??" I wondered aloud.

"We just got Chinese CROP DUSTED! For the second time!" Collin said.

Crop dusted indeed. "Crop dusted" is something I would never attempt to explain to my students, but for the sake of anyone reading that might not be familiar with this particular phrase, I'll provide a definition:

Crop Dust: to expel gas onto unsuspecting victims as you stroll by, just as a crop dusting plane sprays the fields below.

I shared these stories with my students, in much simpler English, and found that farting is universally funny. Not that I doubted this for a second.

-T