The Chinese and English language has a different sentence structure and in the process of a Chinese learning English their expressions in English are sometimes rather interesting. In China this English flavored style is called Chinglish. The following, which was written by Jiajing, contains some Chinglish.
Before I left for the States, one of my American friends told me to enjoy Chinese food while I could, because I probably wouldn’t be able to find any real Chinese food in Texas. I didn’t realize that was true until I finally came to this country. Things changed a lot here. In the first day, I was convinced to try a fish sandwich in a fast food restaurant. I thought it should be a small sandwich with some real fish in it when I ordered. But it turned out a big, greasy with fried fish inside sandwich. That sandwich looked like bigger than my mouth, how could I eat them together. I could barely take a bite. So I decided to eat the sandwich bread first then finished the fish without the crusty-cover. That was my first meal in US which is so unforgettable and impressive.
Then I travelled a little bit, living with an American family in western New York. While eating with them and helping them prepare food, I found homemade American food is actually very good and healthier than those fat fast foods.
There is a huge difference between the kitchen in China and the kitchen in US. Kitchen is an important part of American houses and is much bigger and more open than Chinese. They use oven to preparing food so in every American kitchen there is a big oven and four induction cookers above the oven. Because they put food in the oven to bake, there isn’t smell of cooking in the kitchen so that kitchen is very clean. If you live in China, there is no big space for kitchen and they use an extractor fan to get rid of the strong smell of cooking. It can be pretty nasty sometimes. In China, people use stove to cook the meal and you can see the fire underneath (gas burners).
I have a kitchen in my dorm where I go to school. There is also an oven in that small kitchen but I didn’t how to use it. On this Christmas break living in Weller’s house, their three-year old oven burned out, the flame came out from the back that was pretty cool like fireworks. When someone came to fix it, I got a chance to learn a little more about the oven. There are two baking elements in the oven and two tubes used to heat separated on the top and in the bottom. The bottom one is used to bake and the one on the top is used to boil. Heating on the top of the stove may spill the food out of bowl. Chinese people use fan when they cook, there is also a fan on the top of the oven in my dorm, even though, we still have problem to air the room and make it very smoky. The fire alarm in my dorm rings twice a week as Chinese students are cooking carelessly.
I have had so much conversation with Chinese students learning English that the above sounds normal to me. I have learned to fill in words where needed or make changes in structure to understand what is being said. I didn’t change what Jiajing wrote because I thought you would better know her this way. Also, think of the challenge she will have next semester when she takes a college course in English composition. Learning another language is not easy; at least I don’t think so.
