Some things just don't translate

There have been some beautifully funny moments in language class where we as students seemed absolutely ludicrous to our teachers:

- Melissa and I go over to our friend Sue's house every Saturday to do laundry, bake, and generally spend time with Sue. As per norm, our teacher, Evans, asked us on Sunday what we did over the weekend, so Melissa proceeded to tell our teacher and the class about us doing laundry and baking at Sue's. He appeared confused for a bit, and then asked, "Sue, what were you doing?" Sue answered honestly, "I watched them," as we talked and enjoyed each other's company. Our teacher was even more baffled. Finally he said, "Well, did you pay them?" We burst into laughter! He thought Melissa and I were doing Sue's laundry and cooking like househelp would. And even when he realized that it was our own laundry and cooking that we did, he couldn't understand why we would do that there or that Sue would allow us to. The whole thing was a foreign concept.

- There is a word in Bangla that means "to visit." As Americans, we use this word very loosely: we visit a park, we visit a friend, we visit the doctor, etc. In Bangla, though, it means to visit a friend or distant family member either for a short time or for a few days. During class, we are asked to use new vocabulary in a sentence, so one of us (Melissa or I) said we were going to visit our parents' house. Our teacher, Pulak, said, "No, that is impossible. That sentence does not work here." Why? Because in this culture, my parents' home is my home, my family home, and I cannot visit my own home. I can go home, but I cannot use this verb to visit my parents' home. We tried explaining that in the States, our parents' home is not our home. Our teacher told us he understood, but that no one else in this culture would. And just to see if our teacher was lying (he happens to be the one who understands Western culture the best), we tried this out on another teacher. That teacher was more confused and said "Impossible. You cannot use it like that." Ha!

- "ki keyechen?" What have you eaten? This is a very common question to get us talking at the beginning of class. So one day our friend Sue said she had made and eaten deviled eggs (where did the name come from anyway?). In order to practice Bangla and to understand what the heck we were talking about, our teacher, Evans, made Sue describe how to make deviled eggs. After we muddled through it in Bangla with lots of help from the teacher, Sue ended by saying we put the yolk and spice concoction back into the eggs. Our teacher paused and then asked us, "Then what do you do?" He thought there had to be more to it . . . do we fry it? No, then we eat it. He looked a little confused and disgusted. "Do you eat it with rice?" No, just by itself. "You don't eat it with rice?" Nope. We then tried to tell him it's a picnic food or a side dish, but still, this deviled egg made no sense to him. Unless rice Bangladeshis eat rice at a meal, they have not eaten a meal.

As I find amusement within this culture, I realize the same goes for them. We Americans/Westerners are very strange people. Some things just don't translate.