Waiter, What's this Ghost Doing in my Soup?

A nice humor entry that does not revolve entirely around my own cultural and linguistic blunders; yesterday, Yazhen informed us that her roommate had discovered a mushroom in their bathroom. Mushroom is “mogu”, but Xueqin and I heard “mogui” which means monster or evil spirit (I also have a theory that this is the source of the name of the creatures in Gremlins). Knowing Chinese girls to scare easily and be superstitious about things like ghosts, we thought nothing of Yazhen’s matter-of-fact tone. There’s a ghost in your bathroom? Interesting… In fact when I came back from fall break unannounced and took a shower, I think Xiaojun got a bit of a fright, herself. Of course we figured out the mistake pretty quickly and alternatively laughed and cringed at the thought of either toilet intruder, sympathizing about the icky bathroom growth and wondering where to find a fungicide.

After a great day of no class and a few leisurely hours in a teahouse with a buffet, compliments of the school, five of us went out for Sichuan hotpot at a nearby restaurant. We ordered vegetables, meat, dumplings, tofu, potatoes and two kinds of mushrooms. We had a good laugh over the mogu/mogui story, and by then of course the wrong association was already cemented. Near the end of the meal, Huijuan took a ladle and started sifting through the pot, and after a minute declared that there were no more demons in the hotpot. I wish I knew the word for “exorcism”.