Crabby

Last night three students appeared at my apartment to give me and another Aussie teacher a gift for helping them at "Translation Club" - which was delightful. One of the boys had worked out that my favourite colour was purple and they bought a lovely purple scarf for me.

Sitting in the corner of my room was the rather bizarre hat that I wore for Melbourne Cup celebrations, so I had to explain. They do not understand horse racing, or indeed any other sort of racing. We then explained that in Australia on Melbourne Cup Day - in those parts where there were no horse races that there were camel races and crab races. (I sit with an English/Chinese dictionary for much of my conversations with students.)

Crab races? The concept is just too crazy for them to contemplate. The next thing we had diagrams of how it could be done. We even suggested trying it for fun. Small crabs are available in the supermarkets so getting our races shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway it is not likely that we will get our chance to show the students such an event. When they left the apartment I wondered what was going through their minds.

Crabs are for eating here. And they are such small ones we are not interested in them as food. I wonder what will happen.................... Maybe nothing.