Actor Yoon Si-yoon talked about an incident that happened during his working trip to China.
Yoon Si-yoon shared his story on SBS talk show “Strong Heart” where stars appeared to tell their bizarre and unusual stories. At the time os his story, Yoon was in China for a schedule.
“I stayed at a hotel in China,” he said, “One day, I ran into a cleaning lady. Usually, there’s a manager who knows Chinese takes care of the laundry for me, but as I have secretly been learning Chinese for a month and a half, I thought, ‘Should I try taking care of the laundry on my own?’”
“As ‘xǐ liǎn’ means washing your face, I was guessing that ‘xǐ’ means washing, so I used all of my body language to ask her to help me ‘xǐ’ my clothes,” he said, sharing that he successfully communicated with the cleaning lady. Even the interpreter was surprised after hearing his story, and soon the rumor of Yoon Si-yoon’s excellent Chinese ability started to spread.
However, the laundry still hadn’t come back after two weeks. When asked, the hotel said that they had thrown all of those clothes away. The interpreter, who 100% trusted Yoon Si-yoon’s Chinese skill, thought it was the hotel’s fault and started to argue with the manager.
It turned out that what Si-yoon said to the lady was not “xǐ” but “sǐ,” which means kill in Chinese. The Chinese cleaning lady understood his words as “This Korean guest told me to kill his laundry,” which is why she threw everything away.
When you go abroad where you can’t communicate, make sure to use a translator…^^
Source: daum
