My Chinese Pen-Pal
Ole tells us in his blog that one of the highlights of living in China is the surprise of having semi-competent English speakers (no, he doesn’t mean me) spontaneously greet laowai with the refrain Welcome to China! Happy every day! I’ve heard the Welcome to China! part a lot, addressed to the unsuspecting roundeye whether or not he has lived in the country for a day, 6 months or 50 years. I have not encountered the Happy Every Day! coda until today. It is the upbeat denouement of the first e-mail from my first Chinese pen-pal, a stand-out participant in a summer-camp where I supplied the occassional guest-spot. She is the 13 year old cousin of one of the scheme’s teachers (referred to as the teacher’s sister - this one child policy is playing havoc with the semantics of familial address), who requested that I help her out with a writing-piece for a competition, and also e-mail her. Considering this side-gig pays me more than 3 times the hourly rate of my standard contract, and that I am a lazy feckless whitey with reams of leisure time, I could not reasonably refuse. I even gave her a magazine about Channel Island Sport featuring the Siam Cup, to which she makes one of the two generic compliments of Chinese youth, cool and handsome.
Its fortunate she didn’t use the second option, as I could have gotten into trouble publishing personal correspondence with a 13 year-old girl featuring the term handsome on the internet.
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John:
Happy to meet letter to you!
Thanks for your magazine! I love it. Your teammates are all cool! But I do not like sports or exercise, exactly. I think I’m a real couch potato. But I love music very much!
I think P- already wrote letter to you that tell you about photos,so I don’t want to talk about them. But I can tell you, you are very cool in the photos! I and my writings are problems, but you give me lots of helping.
So I also very thanks for your helping. In future, we are pen pals.
OK?
Had better, let me recommend you two songs: one is from Westlife, the name is “Season in the sun”, the other is from Westlife, too, Its name is “My love”. I love them (the songs) very much, I wish you can love them, too!
Can you write to me soon?
To:
Happy every day!
Your friend: V-