Nicknames

The best book I've read about China - River Town - is written by an American guy (Peter Hessler) who spent 2 years here teaching English in the 1990s. He was working in a town with no other foreigners apart from his fellow American teacher. He said over time they developed nicknames for several people in the town, the school, etc, that no one else knew and I've found that my fellow European flatmate and I have done exactly the same. Unfortunately I have no pictures, but a written description is presented below.

The Burger
A Korean student at the uni, so called because a) he's more than a tad lardy, b) in winter he wears a big, brown puffer jacket and c), he appears to have the mental capacity of grilled meat. He always has this dumbfounded look on his face, like he's been airlifted into Xi'an for the first time and has no idea what's going on. He's actually a nice guy, but a complete burger.

Tiger Woods
This is a girl from Thailand at the uni who has a 42-teeth grin just like Tiger Woods. The funny thing is, we both used to think she was pretty. Then after the summer, I said to my flatmate, 'Hey, I saw Tiger Woods today, she doesn't look pretty anymore', and he said he had seen her that day as well and thought exactly the same. While she may have lost her appeal, there's no-one better with a 7 iron.

The Doormat
This is a girl who has been staying in my Chinese flatmate's room recently, so-called because she has a fringe resembling this essential household item - brown, thick, coarse, heavy, all in all, extremely matty. The thing about the girls who dye their hair here, presumably they do it to look a bit different, but they all dye it a pale brown colour. Individuality, Chinese style.

The Duck
This is the Taiwanese guy from the bar last week who quacks when you call his name. It's not really a quack, but it must be the Taiwanese equivalent of 'eh', or 'aye', the sound when you hear someone calling your name. I was there today, and so was he, quacking happily, unsurprising given the recent rain.

FuckYes
This is the Butler's friend (see below) who has been to our flat a couple of times. Typical Chinese girl, a bit mousy, innocent sort of personality. She wanted to learn some English so we taught her 'fuckyes', saying it means 'absolutely right', which is more than a half truth. It's quite funny when she said it with this big smile, thinking she was being so clever with her English. (Her degree, by the way, is English). Next day she phones me up saying she looked in the dictionary and discovered it has alternative meanings. Isn't she clever!

The Butler
Former flatmate who moved out last week, so-called because in the first few weeks of living together he actively volunteered to be butler at any future party. He said he felt no-one respected him, which is probably true, and very unsurprising, given things like when there were lots of people in the flat, he would insist on sitting on the floor. A complete nutcase, I'm not certain his genes are 100% human, there seemed to be a fair amount of plankton in his DNA.