According to my little sister, my old school has started teaching Mandarin as a compulsory foreign language instead of French. Apparently speaking Mandarin is the only way to get ahead in the business world of tomorrow, and my headmistress has big plans for her girls. All I can think is that they are all going to be accidentally insulting each other when they get the pronunciation and cadence wrong.

My father worked in various places around China, Hong Kong and Japan for a while and said (and I quote) "I didn't want to try asking someone to pass the tea and end up telling them that I peed on their mother last night instead." Oh, dad.