Ebaby! Blog

If you saw the the footage of Google’s recent house party, you probably thought to yourself, “Hey? Where’s the Intnet’s leading ESL social networking site, Ebaby!?”So did I, so I looked into it. Apparently, we were represented by a very cute Chinese girl (pictured) named Fei. She walked around the party asking everyone if they wanted to be her friend and practice English with her.The first person to take her up on it was the hip young lad from pitchforkmedia.com, who you may also notice is strangely absent from the party. Well, they started chatting and one thing let to another, and apparently they spent the whole time making out on the porch and missed the entire filming.Dang! Next time they’ll have to invite Captain Jeff to have a drinking competition with MySpace Tom.

Despite the release of our very romantic preview of “Ebaby!’s Turkrainian Wedding,” commenters chose topractice their English with death threats this week.One member from Denmark immediately thinks of dying for someone at the mention of marriage. This reads like a slightly morbid wedding vow. We also have a young Russian woman who is deadly serious about finding friends and penpals on the Internet. Finally, a member from Mauritania seems pretty convinced that our English lesson on being a good Samaritan actually killed someone. It really is a tough world in ESL and online English education this week. A woman from Slovenia took ourEnglish lesson on James Bond as a chance to explain that she will not tolerate a wimp. The Eagles seem to have had a painful effect on this Chinese woman’s hands.“Finger-popping”…That sounds painful! Finally, this week’s English slang lesson drew concerns of an alien invasion from a Sri Lankan member. If all that wasn’t enough, someone showed up on the good Samaritan lesson just to tell me how I feel.Geez. So my pet frog died this week. DID YOU HAVE TO RUB IT IN??? But it’s not all darkness here in the land English chat and English forums. Those seeking friends are always in abundance here on Ebaby!, like this person who mistook an English lesson for a potential friend. And of course, cultural exchange is in no short supply. We learned of the Indian version of the good Samaritan……as well as the Chinese. And one Bulgarian got her fair share of “lolz” at my conversation with Mason.And, finally, in addition to a place to practice English, learn English free, and make friends all over the world, apparently Ebaby! is a place to develop self-love.

My headline on Ebaby! mentions that I’ll be touring the world with my band someday. The headlines on English, baby! seem to be more visible than on a lot of other social networking sites, so I get a lot of messages from people looking to find friends who want to chat about music. People often message to ask, “Will you come to Thailand?” or “Do you stop in Slovakia?” I always just tell them, “Sure. What town do you live in? Do American bands play there?” I figure it can’t hurt to network a little. Sometimes I give them my email when they ask for it.

This is often the first thing I do when I get to the office and I’m often a little hung over when I show up. One day, after what I can only imagine was a really rough night, I must have given a member from Ghana my phone number. I see people give out their phone numbers all the time on Ebaby! but it seems hard to me to talk to a stranger on the phone…that’s what the Internet is for.

Anyway, a few days later my phone rang with a call from a phone number with like 14 digits. I did’t answer it and I got a message.

“Hello, Jason. This is Isaak from Ghana. Isaak from Ghana. Your friend. This is Isaak from Ghana. You call me.”

I had to play it a few times to make sure I was hearing right. Throughout the day Isaak kept calling me. I asked around the office what people thought he might want. We guessed that he probably just wanted to practice English with a native speaker and we wonderedhow hard it is to call the US from Ghana. I mean, he could have Skype on his computer at home, or he could have to climb a mountain, pay 10 dollars, wait in line for an hour and call from rotary phone.

Isaak called me so often that it kind of freaked me out and I never answered the phone. He called at all hours, many times a day. Then one night I was in Seattle and a little drunk when Isaak called me at about 3 am. I decided to answer.

Jason: Hello?

Isaak: Hello! You never answer your phone!

Jason: I know…I travel a lot. [Which is true!] What’s on your mind?

Isaak: What?

Jason: What’s on your mind when you call?

Isaak: What?

Jason: You call very often. What do you call to say?

Isaak: I call to say don’t worry about your trip! Everything will be OK! Don’t worry!

Jason: Oh, OK, I won’t worry. I wasn’t worried.

Isaak: When do you come?

Jason: Well, like I told you in the emails, it’ll be a while, probably 2009 or later. [Can’t I dream?]

Isaak: OK. Well don’t worry. I take care of everything.

Jason: OK. Thanks Isaak.

I guess it just turns out that he’s excited for me to come visit him. He says that a metal band has never played in his village. It’s my dream to be the first one.

A few days later I got an email from Isaak that said“Hello Dear: Missing you more than ever.” I got a good laugh out of that. He must have heard someone say that somewhere, like in a movie, and not quite understood what it meant. It’s always nice to be called “dear” though, I guess. Even by Ghanaian dudes you’ve never met.

I’ve always thought that the best part of the lessons on English, baby! is the comments. They’re certainly the funniest part because ESL students and people learning English can say and do things a native speaker like me would never have thought of. Sometimes they make some great observations and share wisdom as they learn English and make friends.Every week or so from now on I’m going to blog about the funniest, most interesting and best commentsleft on the lessons from that week. The movie this week was Bee Movie, which I haven’t seen, but I’m tempted to because I like Jerry Seinfeld so much. But apparently seeing Bee Movie can be hazardous to your health. This poor Chinese gentleman died mid-comment. So I guess I better not make Bee Movie my next date with Amanda. My attempt to kiss her drew a lot of interesting comments including a couple from anEgyptian guy who decided to make his own quizabout what you would do if a girl asked you to take it slow.In case you don’t feel like checking out the lesson, it’s summed up pretty well here by this comment, which comes to us from Sri Lanka.Another commenter, a Somalian rap artist (judging from the Vanilla Ice-style posture in the photo) sums up the lesson in something of a mysterious telegram. Some might call that bad English. Others might call it post modern poetry. In any case, he must have missed our lesson on the KKK a couple of weeks ago. Amanda’s father is Chinese (as is referenced in this lesson on Chinese food) so maybe Chinese girls just don’t like me, because there were a pair of Chinese ladies who commented specifically to say they would not date me.Amanda is reluctant to date me as it is! Don’t encourage her hesitation! Wish me luck on the Amanda front. I need it.But those sick people in New York need way more help. One commenter with a handle in characters I don’t recognize shared the apocalyptic thoughts the lesson brought to her mind: “the world getting worse and worse, so dirty not only the environment but the people’s heart.”On a lighter note, that lesson also brings us the “Will You Be My Friend?” comment of the week! A lot of people seem to get lost on the site looking for English chat and English forums and end up posting all over the place asking for friends. So each week I’m going to select one of those to share here. I like the forlorn yet straightforward plea of this Chinese teen. And I leave you with this.Recliners are NOT horrible. And don’t you forget it. Thanks, my Pakistani friend.