Awesome

As many of you know, I make my living teaching English as a Second Language. Teaching came about as a mid-life career change and it has been a joy. And my students never fail to amaze me. And when they’re not amazing, they are, at least, amusing.
At the moment, at CSUSM, we’re all getting ready for the International Fair, a day in which many groups showcase their talents and share their lives. Last year, my students decided to do body art and it was hugely popular. The line at our booth never let up as students waited to have some fancy Oriental calligraphy painted on them.
Being fairly wise, my students who were taking part, a mixed group of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean had decided it would make sense to make templates and then one could just fill them in, rather than having to create a new design for each person. So, they carefully designed and then cut out various words that they thought might appeal to the other students: happiness, luck, joy. Of course, they also decided we needed to be enthusiastic about our school, so they created a CSUSM template and a cougar which turned out to be one of the most popular patterns. They also decided they needed some modern themes.
Fast forward to this year. I dug out the templates I’d saved and encouraged this year’s group to come up with some others and, perhaps, reinforce the ones we had. After just a few minutes there was a low giggle going about the class. And when I asked to be let in on the funny, they showed me a template labeled “awesome.” Modern indeed. And I said, so what’s funny?
After some time, they stumbled around and tried to explain to me that “awesome” is a slang word and doesn’t exist in Chinese, so whoever originally drew this one had put two characters together which kind of translated into the idea of awesome, but read rather strangely. Sensing more was afoot, but somewhat satisfied I just let the class continue their efforts.
When the class met the next time, the same twittering went around the room when this card was shown to a fellow who’d been absent. Finally a couple of the Chinese women told me we couldn’t use it. The class chimed in – some pretty much in agreement and some who said it was fine. Still, I knew something more was going on and I pushed for an explanation. None was forthcoming. The young man who’d been absent, though, had something to say. He’d been in my class the year before and, apparently, had drawn this design. And he was prompt to defend it. As busy as we were, I let it go again.
Until the class met the third time to continue this project – the International Fair now less than a week away. And, somehow, the awesome template had made its way back into the stack of patterns we are going to use this year. When one of the young Japanese fellows noticed it, he pulled it out and gave it to me and said, somewhat solemnly, we can’t use this one. I’ve had him in one of my more academic courses and knew that he respected me, so I was really perplexed and I asked why – again.
He sort of looked down at his feet while that same giggling started again going around the room and bouncing off one another as some fought to hold back their laughter and others just couldn’t. Before much longer, one of the younger Chinese boys (technically a man, but barely) came close to me and mumbled under his breath, “It says “f*king awesome.” Before I could help myself I repeated what he had said which caused the entire class to just about roll on the floor. Afterwards I could truly report I was ROTFLMAO.