Yesterday in one of my elementary classes, we were playing a game. One of the 4th grade boys was so excited that when he raised his hand, he fell out of his chair. It was quite comic – it had the appearance of someone yanking up his arm so hard that he flew into the air and landed on the floor, but he did it on his own. The other kids laughed, and so he hammed a little bit after that.
The other kids began joking around (in Korean) that he was like a broken machine or toy, and someone said he was 중국산 (chung-guk-san = “product of China”). This was humorous, too. We all laughed. For the rest of the class, we had a little meme going, where anytime someone made a mistake, there would be a chorus of “중국산!” [Product of China]. I guess it was funny – it shows that China’s reputation for mass-produced crap is not just confined to the US.
