I got in late last night because I had dinner with Mr. Yang and other friends.  Before dinner I helped some students with their English studies, played the “Fight the Landlord” card game, and then at dinner drank some white wine (104 proof liquor) made by the Moutai Corporation. It was a fine time.

Fight the Landlord is a card game played by three people. If you think you can get rid of your cards first, you can try to be the landlord, in which case  the other two players team up together to try to stop you.  The rules of this game are kind of complex, and are beyond the scope of this post.  After you learn the rules, the game gets very complex.  There are many possibilities in the way the cards fall, and strategies are not straightforward.  The Chinese adults that I was playing with have played this game for many years, so I was lucky that I didn’t lose every hand.

My best Chinese friend, Steven, had a Xinhua News clipping about the attack on the LA Airport and there was a troublesome grammar error. I had just run into this problem in my English class when the textbook referenced “The family are living in …” I had told the class that it was common usage to say that “The family is …” I was challenged during and after class when students said that their Chinese English teacher had confirmed that it should be “are” because it  was a collection, like “police are”.

I didn’t back down, even though the textbook said the student was right.  I thought maybe it was a text written by a Chinese scholar, but his name was “Jones”, who happens to be a world famous linguist. So I told the students they should try to find out what the test required in way of answers to this kind of question, but for my class they should say “The family is. . .”

I think that there is some kind of conspiracy to change the English Language to conform with Chinese Characteristics.  This is what the Xinhua news clipping said:

The students were more excited than usual at this controversy . . .

It’s understandable that I would drink a lot of the “white wine” after this grueling session with the students.  The dinner was heavily peppered, as is the Guizhou style.  I especially liked the little insects that were roasted in pepper . . .

You can probably understand why I slept late this morning.