Lead Blog --- Things Bilingual People do

Hi, everyone! Welcome to my blog! Hope you guys can enjoy the video and have fun~ Hoo Hoo!

This video, made by international students in America, lists almost all the situations of using foreign languages. Bilingual people can change their languages whenever they want to say secrets, describe their feeling in a better way, or even switch in the mid sentance. Some situations in the video remind me of my past experiences in my daily life. For me, I choose to use either English or Chinese due to the person I speak with. However, when I was talking with my American friends and Chinese friends in the same time, Chinese words sometimes just jumps out of my mouth and my American friends will get confused. I never mean to do this, but if that happens, I will translate what I just said into in Chinese, since I know people around will feel frustrating and uncomfortable.

However, when watching the video, the subtitle enables me to understand every language they are speaking without feeling confusion. Therefore, I don't feel sad when people cannot get the meaning and try to guess the meaning, and the more confused they are, the more hilarious I felt. For example, when I saw Steven was suffering from listening the girls says random negative words, I knew he has the illusion that the girl is complaining about him, and he might even try to recall if he did something wrong recently. For him, the foreign language is like a secret code which has latent meanings, and probably those meanings are not friendly. However, by reading the subtitle, we knew the conversation is just about the boring class and awful meal, which have no relationship with him. The ability of understanding inside story gives us superior feeling that enables us to laugh at the characters without being confused.

In the first scene, it shows that bilingual people can use their own language to say secrets in public; however, everything will go well until others start to talk with you in your own language. It is always surprised to know people can speak our own language. One day, the cook in DH said Thank you in Chinese when I has already got ready to say "You are welcome". I was suddenly amazed that he can speak Chinese, and then when I try to answer him in Chinese, I failed, because it is so hard to change languages in a second, so I just spoke in English like usual, but he then said," I am sorry, I thought you are Chinese." At that moment, I was a little embarrassing, but after I explained, we both laughed and felt it is so interesting to speak in different language. Although there are more and more people learn foreign languages, we still use Chinese to say a lot of personal experiences in the public. For example, my friend and I sometimes talk about our private life in the public just like greeting for each other, while others just thought we are saying how are you or hello.

This video makes me recall many similar experiences happened in my life. The reason I shared this video is not just because it is interesting, but also because I think although America is very racially diverse, it is not that linguistically diverse. I hope this blog can help you guys know how amazing it is to speak multiple languages, and I am glad to hear your experiences or thoughts on this topic.

Response to Katty's Blog

It is so true that we sometimes buy so called "healthy food" without considering thoroughly about its reliability. Although the thinking process will probably just take several seconds, we still do not want to consider it due to the fact that we need this so much, and we want to try it even if it has risk that it is not as good as it says. 

In my own experience, after graduated from high school, as getting older, I started to think of my appearance. When seeing the pretty girl dressing short skirt and shows her long and slim legs, I was so jealous that she has such good figure so that she will never refuse to buy her favorite clothes because she cannot fit in. Therefore, I cannot ignore the fact that I am fatter than them and not thin enough to become beautiful. Meanwhile, I realized it is time to do something about my body weight. However, whenever I saw the delicate desert or anything looks delicious, I never have the idea to stop  eating or even try to eat less. How can I lose weight without set limit for food? I thought maybe losing weight is just not my thing because my principle of life is enjoying it, and I really cannot think about losing weight when I saw good meals. However, I did not find out how impulsive people are when they saw something that really attractive until I saw a product. It is a kind of medicine that made of herb which is healthy and it often used for help models keep slim, in other word, this is the medicine that cannot be bought on the market because it is only sale to models who need to become slim immediately before the show. Besides, it says it can help me lose weight without eating less but drinking water as much as possible. I heard a lot of news about how people become unhealthy by taking some weird medicine, but at that time, I gave myself a lot of excuses unconsciously so that I made up my mind and bought it finally. It takes me 400 RMB, which is not a small number for a student. Then, on one day, I told my mom, who is a nurse, about my medicine. She told me a story about some patients she met before. They are thin and seem healthy but their intestines are actually  turning black under awareness because they are having so called "healthy" slimming pills. After hearing this story, I really believe my former guess that the reason I should drink a lot of water is because the harmful substances will actually stay in my body and continue hurt my organ. My mom's argument was strong enough to help me keep a clear-head and realize how stupid I was.

In conclusion, the decision we made when we are exciting is always muddle because we always highlight the favorable part but ignore the questionable ones. The reason why we buy something like my pills is because of my strong will of weight. I will probably buy anything that seems works for me, and it is all about timing. If I saw it in the other time, I might not buy it but trying to figure out what exactly in it.

Response to Emma's lead blog

I did not watch this movie before, but I kind of get the idea about what is it and the style of it. It is the movie showing how a girl grow up in the harsh environment where girls are competing all the time. The idea that taking lesson while watching movie is reasonable. Nobody will likes the lecture on what we can or cannot do, so comedy is the form that encourages audiences to watch happily without focus on the meaning behind the film, but do know there is a latent lesson unconsciously.

In fact, most of people also run into the problems of bulling or verbal attacks more or less. Those problems are not particularly appear in one particular school, but almost all the high school. Therefore, when watching the movie, it is easy for people to recall their memory or sad experiences in their high school. The people who always bullied others will also start to review their history when seeing social queen do the same thing like they did before. If there is no humor in the movie, all those memory flooded into their mind will influence their feeling toward the movie. Maybe the one who saw the another self in the movie will became so regretful that do not want to watch it anymore. Although it does give audiences lessons by showing how bad influences they made to others, it may be too straight forward to give audiences good feelings.

Writing a play is like educating children. Parents cannot remark on their children's behaviors so directly without any modify, because it will sound like order them to follow rules. Children will be hurt or even develop a rebellious mind if their parents are too strict with them. However, if parents can use another ways, like telling fairy tale, children will accept the meaning unconsciously and even glad to learn more.

Response to Kirsten's lead blog

This “Try Not to Smile or Laugh” challenge makes me laugh so bad in that it is funny not only in the short videos but also in those participants' reaction. In my opinion, the boy in the green T-shirt is the most hilarious one among them. When watching the concert one, which shows the audience is so excited that sing really terrible, he criticized her seriously and said that 'if she wanna sing, she gonna sing right'. Although I cannot figure out why he said that, the way he reacted is totally out of my expectation. And there are other people who try as hard as possible to suppress their desire to laugh always have suffering faces, and some of them even try to change their facial expression into surprising. These unusual and unnatural facial expression become other sources of my laugh. If I track the theory behind my laughing, I think that would be superiority theory, because I laugh that they cannot release their original feelings like me and although they challenged successfully in the end, I got more happiness than they got. Therefore, I had the same feeling with the boy who said, “The idea of a laugh challenge makes me laugh.”


In addition, I watched this video twice. The first time was watched by myself, and the second time was with my friends. I found it is much easier to laugh when there are people surrounded. My friends are not usually laugh as easily as I do, so whenever they found it is funny, I unconsciously laugh harder, just like when I saw the participants laugh. When we were laughing, these videos suddenly become the link which bond us together. It is not important about what was showing, but the connection between my friends and I. At that moment, comedy is like the tool of communicating. It has magic to bring people together just by laughing out loud, and in this way, audiences who laugh together can know that they have same type of laughing which maybe suggests that they have same interest and they are same type of people.