Asking questions

One of the teachers here is pregnant, and since I brought a lot of yarn with me, I thought I'd knit something for the baby. I asked one of the other teachers if there were any superstitions regarding baby gifts (I was thinking specifically that it might be considered bad luck to buy things for the baby or to give a gift before the birth) and was assured by 2 teachers that "no, there are no superstitions about baby gifts." I said "great" and turned back to my blog-writing, only to be told next that there were no superstitions EXCEPT that you don't give baby gifts before the baby is born. Good to know, I said to myself. In case you're wondering, I had given a lesson on superstitions in class the previous week, and had elicited examples of Mongolian superstitions from the teachers' class during it, so I knew they knew what superstitions were.

I also gave a lesson about idioms last week, and gave many common examples, but the one example that consistently brought a smile to every face was "birthday suit". The first guess on the meaning of it was always a nice outfit, or one's best clothing, so when I asked them to think about what they were wearing on the day they were born, huge smiles came out across their faces.