Warning: This item ranks in the special Very Bad Humour category, and may be offensive to some (as though everything in Email Wasteland wasn’t offensive anyway).

Read the following Chinese Phrases aloud to complete this lesson:

English Phrase	Chinese Phrase
That’s not right	Sum Ting Wong
Are you harboring a fugitive?	Hu Yu Hai Ding
See me as soon as possible.	Kum Hia Nao
Stupid Man	Dum Gai
Small Horse	Tai Ni Po Ni
Did you go to the beach?	Wai Yu So Tan
I bumped into a coffee table	Ai Bang Mai Ni
I think you need a face lift	Chin Tu Fat
It’s very dark in here	Wao So Dim
I thought you were on a diet	Wai Yu Mun Ching?
It is a tow away zone	No Pah King
Our meeting is scheduled for next week	Wai Yu Kum Nao?
Staying out of sight	Lei Ying Lo
He’s cleaning his automobile	Wa Shing Ka
Your body odor is offensive	Yu Stin Ki Pu
Great!	Fu Kin Su Pah

This has been circulating for quite awhile, and has several variations.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
• You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
• You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them Worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION

• You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
• You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• You count them and learn you have five cows.
• You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
• You count them again and learn you have 12 cows.
• You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION

• You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you.
• You charge others for storing them.

A HINDU CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• You worship them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• You have 300 people milking them.
• You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

A WELSH CORPORATION

• You have two cows.
• That one on the left is kinda cute.

The Enron Addition

Usually this new category falls, we feel inappropriately, at the beginning of the original. We feel it is appropriate to add this section to the end, to preserve the original piece in its untarnished state. The last three sentences are the very latest addition.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM:

• You have two cows.
• You sell one and buy a bull.
• Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
• You sell them and retire on the income.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM:

• You have two cows.
• You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
• The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
• The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
• You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
• No balance sheet is provided with the release.
• The public buys your bull.

The Birds and the Bees ::

Explaining the birds and the bees in the 21st century, the little boy asked his father, “Daddy, how was I born?”

Dad responds, “Ah, my son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! So here goes.”

“Well, you see your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on MSN. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. Then we sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a blessed little popup appeared and said:

You’ve Got Male!”

War at Sea – How Canada and the USA Nearly Went to War

This is the transcript of the actual radio conversation of a US Naval ship and the Canadians, off the coast of Newfoundland, October, 1995.

Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 10-10-95.

CANADIANS:

Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South, to avoid a collision.

AMERICANS:

Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North, to avoid a collision.

CANADIANS:

Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

AMERICANS:

This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

CANADIANS:

Negative. I say again, You will have to divert your course.

AMERICANS:

THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN. THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES ATLANTIC FLEET, WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE
CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, I SAY AGAIN, THAT’S 15 DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTERMEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

CANADIANS:

We are a lighthouse. Your call.