Corpse Run 230: Welcome to Oz
Sometimes I wake up and have a normal day. Sometimes I wake up and doodle Glinda beating the black and white out of Dorothy.
Actually, that’s a lie.
I never have a normal day. That said, this strip was really fun to draw!
Over the past few weeks, we have had some teachers from Armenia to instruct the kids in Armenian art and dancing. The art teacher, Ella, speaks just about zero English and, despite the fact that she knows I don’t speak Armenian, she speaks to me in Armenian constantly.
Any time this happens, I resort to my usual tactic: smiling and nodding. If I feel a conversation is particularly special, I’ll muster a giggle and hand gesture.
At the start of meals, kitchen staff leaves all the food items on the tables covered in plastic wrap, including the drink pitchers. Halfway through breakfast one morning, Ella came by, gestured at a still covered pitcher of milk, and said something in Armenian.
I smiled and nodded.
She smiled back, uncovered the pitcher, poured me a glass of milk, and walked away.
I’m not really a fan of milk, but I now felt like I had to drink it in order to avoid being thought of as rude and I had to do it with a smile.
By the way, she didn’t even pour herself some milk. Apparently she took one look at me and decided I needed more calcium.
Are there worse problems in the world? Maybe, but I feel as though this language barrier is seriously stunting my relationship with some of the people. How about you guys, any funny misunderstandings brought about by inadequate communication?
Yeah… My friggin dog won’t bring me a soda can from the fridge, no matter how hard I yell at her… She just ‘smiles’ and ‘nods’ and then starts to chase her own stupid tail… I love her anyways.
BTW, I can’t stop imagining that last panel in full motion, just Hilarious.
I can’t stop loving your work, Sir Alex.
Thanks so much! Also, get the dog in line, I’ve never heard of a dog who *doesn’t* get her owner soda from the fridge!
Try it with ice.
Dude. Milk is awesome. How do you not like milk? You are a strange man indeed.
I dunno, it tastes… weird.
Try it with ice, it cools the milk-fats and changes the taste.
I’ll share 8) :Several years ago i was sitting with my crew(was in a pirate game) in a tavern, everyone just chatting along ,lol’ing the usual, as a subject of groping started a arising, me being not native english speaker and so not understanding the word followed the conversation silently, as laughter and threats of groping +gigglin ensued.
– Being silent for long enough i had the brilliant idea of just randomly groping one of the “senior” members(which i was very good friends with) draggin myself into the conversation. Awkward Silence immedeatly stopped the chat, i then asked what i actually meant since it felt like one of those “forgot pants to go to work moments”. Many private tells explained. Leaving me staring at the screen,going Ohhh boy. i dunno why i just thought of that by reading your “problem” but it just did. PS: love the comics
Oooooh boy. I just returned from a ten day trip in China last night. Let me tell you that I understand exactly how awkward things get when you don’t speak a lick of another language.
One time, we (it was a group trip with scholars from around the world) were at this fantastic “hot pot” restaurant. I went off to find the bathroom, but I kept missing the door to them, despite following the signs. I went up to one of the waitresses (if that’s what they were), and asked her. She smiled at me, looked confused, then went to get her friend. They came back, and I figured that this new girl would speak English. She didn’t. After a few minutes of odd attempts to explain that I needed to bathroom (really badly at that, since whenever a small glass is put in front of me, I drain it in a second. I had gone through about four or five), she went off to get her supervisor. He too, did not speak English. Luckily, we had migrated by that point to near one of the restroom signs, so I pointed at it. He gave a relieved “Oooh” type sigh, and lead me to it. Turns out it the door was flush with the wall, and I had just missed it during my earlier attempts.
Another time was when four of us were at an airport. See, we had just come from the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, and were wearing professional attire. Suit, slacks, tie, the whole deal. Now, since no one wants to wear that on a two hour flight and a bus ride of unknown length, the Faculty Advisers had recommended we bring some casual clothes in our backpacks. We had seen some “lounges and showers” signs at other airports, so we figured that this one in Beijing would have some as well where we could change. Our group walked over to the help desk and one of us asked, “Hey, where can we change our clothes?” Just those empty smiles of confusion answered us. We pointed at our suits and said “Change them”. They thought we wanted to buy some more, so they pointed out the clothing stores. After about five minutes, we called it and made our way to the filthy public restrooms. You know, the ones with the toilets being on the floor. It was not pleasant. We never did find the lounges. This whole incident shouldn’t have happened, in my opinion. You’d think that a place such as an airport would be used to international travelers with questions, and would have multilingual staff manning the help desks.
I’ve got so many of these stories now.