Nobody "birds" me (chinglish)

One day when we were learning the expression, "Long time no see," I talked a little bit about Chinglish. I explained the origin and gave some examples, such as the frequently mentioned “people mountain people sea,” (人山人海) “horse horse, tiger tiger.” (馬馬虎虎)

Then I went on with examples that most foreigners might not understand but certainly will ring a bell to Taiwanese. For example, very often when I enter the classroom, some students just keep what they were doing during the break and ignore me. Jokingly I’ll say, “Nobody birds me,” which comes from an oral expression 沒人鳥我. (Nobody pays attention to me.) When I give them the standard answer to my age, 18, they’ll yell, “Don’t ‘tiger’ us!” 別唬我們, (Don’t bluff us.) as唬 is pronounced the same as虎, which means tiger.

Then students went on with “open car,” to refer to “drive,” literally translated from開車. And everything ends up unexceptionally with sex—“open women,” originating from a Taiwanese expression meaning visit a prostitute. So typical of them!

人山人海: (ren2 shan ren2 hai3) a sea of people; a big crowd of people
山: mountain
海: sea
馬馬虎虎: (ma3 ma3 hu hu) mediocre; so so
馬: horse
虎: (hu3) tiger (pronounced differently as in馬馬虎虎)

沒人鳥我: (mei2 ren2 niao3 wo3) (only orally) Nobody pays attention or responds to me.

鳥: (niao3) bird

鸟: (Simplified)

唬: (hu3) bluff

開車: (kai che) drive

开车: (Simplified)

開: (kai) open

开: (Simplified)