Chinese Leaves Foreigners in Tears

At the International Chinese Language Competition, thirty foreign top students were getting far too cocky. “Chinese? Back home, elementary school kids can master it in two months. It’s easier than toilet paper!” Alex, a genius from Caltech, declared that he would use logic to deconstruct every Chinese character. The Australian contestant Anthony mocked the show in front of everyone: “I could get every question right with my eyes closed.” A million Chinese viewers watching the livestream were so furious their blood pressure shot up, yet they had nothing to say. The first five questions really were freebies like how to pronounce “Good morning” and what measure word to use for “stars.” Then that man walked onto the stage. Lin Mo, a PhD in linguistics, tossed aside the question cards prepared by the production crew and smiled as he spoke: “Xiaoming has a computer class tonight, but he can’t decide whether to go. He says, ‘I’m going, I’m not going.’” “Here’s the question. Xiaoming says, ‘I’m going, I’m not going.’ So, is he going or not?” The whole room fell silent. Thirty confident faces instantly turned into thirty bewildered expressions. The livestream erupted: “Hahahaha, that’s brutal!” But this was only the beginning of the nightmare. “In winter, wear as much as you can; in summer, wear as much as you can. What does ‘as much as you can’ mean in each sentence?” “Xiaoming’s eyelashes are so pretty. Are they real or fake? Fake. Really? Real. So are Xiaoming’s eyelashes real or fake?” One devilish question after another drove the foreign top students to question their sanity. For the first time, they realized that Chinese contained an entire universe. And when they cried, “Chinese is too hard!” Lin Mo only smiled faintly. “Don’t worry. We’re just getting started.”