Chicken breasts!!!

Teaching is not an easy profession. I know because I have friends who are/were teachers. Some of them are still teaching, while others have quit. But all of them said the same thing to me, “Don’t go into teaching”. It’s kind of sad and says a lot about the heavy responsibilities of teachers, as well as the local education system.

But I digress. The topic of this post is not about public teachers but rather about second/foreign language teachers. So why did I say that teaching is not an easy profession? Well, read on.

HY,K and I were at Victoria market sometime ago in Jul/Aug 2006. HY was busy looking at her fresh oysters and salmon sashimi (yes, HY, this part is just to torture you gwahahaha!), while K and I were at the chicken stall. Suddenly, this Caucasian ESL teacher walked towards us leading a small group of Asian students. Obviously some tour of the market. The ESL teacher stopped beside us at the chicken stall and pointed to the chicken breasts. Now this was the part which cracked K and I up. After pointing, the very enthusiastic lady said “chicken breasts” and pointed to her own breasts. K and I had a hard time waiting for her to leave before we burst out laughing. We then began mimicking her (we are so evil I know). We went “chicken feet” and pointed to our own feet, “chicken wing” and flapped our arms, “chicken leg”…well you get the drift.

Incidentally, sometime before this incident, we were at this Asian grocer in Chinatown. We were looking around when this huge group of Australian students came in, led by an Asian guide. She walked past us and said very seriously, “see, we have this, this and that (some Asian products which are very common, sorry I can't remember what they were)”. Once again, we had a hard time controlling our mirth. One of the students even gave us a rather sheepish smile when she walked past us. Yes, my sympathies to you. I would also be very paiseh if I were in your shoes.