The Pofessor

So I threw a changeup with this one. You could say I was struck by inspiration after class on Monday. Walking out of our classroom I found this beauty of a sign on the door of an administrative wing of the building I was in.

Yes, it reads "Pofessor's Room." If this was in America, it would be on Fail Blog within seconds. But there is no such thing as Fail Blog in China. Probably because these "Fails" are lost on many people here. Also, China Fail Blog would crash the entire internet as we know it within seconds. So it's probably better for all surfers of the interwebs that this doesn't yet exist.

When I read this, I thought, "what is the hidden or double meaning here?" Could it just be a simple typo or misspelling? Probably, but that makes for a boring blog post and its more fun to think about someone purposefully writing it like this.

My first thought was they put it up there in protest. Po'fessors banded together and decided to show the world that they are under-appreciated and can barely provide for their families under their current cheapskate employers in the university system. As in the teachers union is "potesting" (HA!) the low salaries they receive for the long hours they work, often times doubling as Chinese students' surrogate mothers and fathers while off at college. One time I heard that my teacher couldn't answer a question after class because she had to immediately go and make sure that a student was keeping his room clean. True story. Think about that next time there's a teachers strike in the US.

The other theory goes that it was someone who thinks teachers are a little too uppity, always riding their high horses, shaming students if they do poorly on a speech or assigning however many pages of a textbook to memorize. Yes you read that correctly. Memorize. Often this is how many students study for a test and it results in incredible memories, but impractical problem solving opportunities and logical learning. So because of this, some guy at the sign factory decided to stick it to their least favorite teachers and made the signs to show foreign students (like yours truly) how poor their English is.

It could just also be a completely new position in the school offices. Another division of paper pushers who perhaps take the thousands of tiny passport photos I've given administrators over the years for visa purposes from one government official to the next in line. Maybe that's why it takes weeks, sometimes months for us to get our passports back.