Story Behind the Comic: Our "F-My Life" Joke

A while back we did this comic that I found on the site called "F my life" which I don't think I need to translate for any of the native English speakers out there.

But I thought it captured a certain aspect of Chinese culture and also it was a very funny unique story with a shocker of an ending.

When studying Chinese, I don't know if you've experienced this before but I've watched many movies pretending that I could understand. I really couldn't. And sometimes I would marvel at the actors, actresses and the dialogue and imagine what they might be saying that would make them react the way they are reacting. What would the person say that would make the other person so angry, laugh outloud, look shocked and so on. That's what this comic reminds me of. If the English wasn't there and it was just a Chinese comic, what do you think the mother would say that would cause that reaction in the boy? Who knows!

Anyway. When I found this story I felt like I needed to explain a bit what FML was to MX who had no clue and little patience for silly websites. We don't swear (too much) mainly because we've had too many words spit right back at us by our 3 year old and plus, I think swearing cheapens the language and makes your vocabulary so boring. (But swearing in Mandarin is a different story, it's not really swearing to me!) But I explained the idea to MX and she got it and so I showed her the comic and she thought it was funny.

Sometimes you have to wonder how many families in America or in England and Canada and Australia are having this conversation nowadays. I know in the US there are many stories of people who are just fed up with the economy and hauling it over to China to start a business or whatever.

Characters and Pinyin:

妈，我一个朋友约翰先不上大学，而是去了中国一年。

真的？亲爱的，我觉得你也应该考虑考虑，我觉得这将是很好的一段经历。

妈，但你知道这一去一回比上你一年大学贵多了。

回来干嘛？

Mā, Wǒ yī ge péngyou Yuēhàn xiān bù shàng dàxué, érshì qùle Zhōngguó guīgǔ yī nián.

Zhēnde? Qīn'ài de, Wǒ juéde nǐ yě yīnggāi kǎolǜ kǎolǜ, Wǒ juéde zhè jiāng shì hěn hǎo de yī duàn jīnglì.

Mā, dàn nǐ zhīdào zhè yī qù yī huí bǐ shàng nǐ yī nián dàxué guì duō le.

Huílai gànmá?

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We've got tons more comics over at Chinese Comics Online or at M and Mx.com where you can practice your reading skills and learn a ton of stuff!

Click on the comic above to go to the site!

M and MX is a husband and wife creative team who have together developed a new web destination! Magnus and Mingxing (“M” for Magnus and “MX” for Mingxing) run their website www.MandMx.com and www.ChineseComicsOnline.com which contains unique stories about China along with the first ever bilingual English/Chinese comic strip. The comics have been featured on a number of popular China sites including Chinasmack.com, Sinosplice.com and LostLaowai.com and have the potential of reaching millions and millions more in both languages!

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Comment by MandMx on December 13, 2011 at 9:59pm: Thanks Shu and Teacher GEN! We appreciate it!

Teacher Comment by Gen on December 13, 2011 at 6:10pm: I navigated to your site as well out of curiousity! I saw some of the comics and they are awesome! Those are good material for learning Chinese and still keeping the fun! Good job, MandMx! the one with bicycling through Shanghai with a Christmas tree on board and also the chopsticks comic cracks me up! two thumbs up!

Teacher Comment by Shu on December 12, 2011 at 2:14pm: No, I am in US now :)

I got a lot of spam comments too. But the filter does the work. Thank you for finding my comment, and not let it lose in the sea of spams! Did you look my post about how to say infatuation and charming? There are a few phrases with mi 2 迷，and I tried to make it humorous a lot. Hope it can make the readers smile a bit when they read that.

Have a new week to you and happy drawing.

Comment by MandMx on December 12, 2011 at 11:42am: Thanks for the comment and thanks for telling me it was there. I get TOO many spam comments nowadays so if you didn't tell me I would have deleted it... but I found it!

So you are from Taiwan? Do you teach Chinese in Taiwan?

Teacher Comment by Shu on December 12, 2011 at 10:44am: Hi MandMX,

I did go to your website and left a comment there:) You got a great website!

No, I don't know that magazine. I came from Taiwan and I did not have any chance to China yet :( I wish some day though.

Humor is very important, it can make learning Chinese fun :) When I teach the class, I try to make my teaching interesting. With smile and laughter, the students can learn better, and remember the class well after the class ends.

I like your humor! Keep up the awesome work!!

Comment by MandMx on December 12, 2011 at 9:35am: Thanks Shu! You used the word 幽默 in your response. There was a humor magazine in China that I used to get with that name. I felt very juvenile getting that book but then again my Chinese level is very juvenile. Do you know the name of that magazine? It had a ton of comics in it and they were all in Chinese. Almost like a Mad Magazine in China.

Thanks again!

Teacher Comment by Shu on December 12, 2011 at 8:44am: Hi, MandMX,

Thank you for sharing, it is really funny. You are a person with good sense of humor, I will go on your website to check it out. 你很有幽默感：）Have a good day there.

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