Tuesday, September 02, 2008

E-mail gets me into trouble again.

To: Angry Professor
From: Zhou Wenru
Subject: This is Wenru

Dear Professor,

This is Wenru, the student who met you at the conference. I am very glad to discuss my work with with you.

You should come to China for travelling. There are many delicious foods and famous places. I will tell my advisor to invite you and maybe give a talk.

Sincerely,
Wenru

To: Zhou Wenru
From: Angry Professor
Subject: Re: This is Wenru

Dear Wenru,

I am pleased to hear from you and glad you enjoyed the conference. I enjoyed speaking with you. I would be very pleased to visit China some day. Please extend my most cordial greetings to your advisor.

Best regards,
Angry

> This is Wenru, the student who met you at the conference. I am very glad to discuss my work
> with with you.
>
> You should come to China for travelling. There are many delicious foods and famous places. I
> will tell my advisor to invite you and maybe give a talk.
>
> Sincerely,
> Wenru

To: Angry Professor
From: Zhou Wenru
Subject: Re: This is Wenru

Dear Angry,

I told my advisors that you are coming to China! They are very excited! Please tell me when you can come. We must fill out paperwork to get funds. We expect to see you any time after November.

Sincerely yours,
Zhou Wenru

> Dear Wenru,
>
> I am pleased to hear from you and glad you enjoyed the conference. I enjoyed speaking with you.
> I would be very pleased to visit China some day. Please extend my most cordial greetings to
> your advisor.
>
> Best regards,
> Angry
>
> > This is Wenru, the student who met you at the conference. I am very glad to discuss my work
> > with with you.
> >
> > You should come to China for travelling. There are many delicious foods and famous places. I
> > will tell my advisor to invite you and maybe give a talk.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Wenru

13 comments:

Kait W. said...

LOL, I think that's how I ended up getting signed up to teach a distance ed course once.

Carina said...

Similar thing happened to me in Russia once. It wasn't with e-mail, but it could've gotten quite interesting very quickly. Ugh.

Hey, maybe you should see how much of the trip they'll pay for. ;)

Anonymous said...

HAHAHAHAHHAA!
Lost in translation.

Anonymous said...

Enjoy your trip! Remember, no dissent.

Anonymous said...

If you meet a bozo on the net, killfile them.

Joeymom said...

Oh dear. The joys of ESL.

Aidan said...

Would you pick up a Mao suit for me while you are there?

Anonymous said...

First we will require $500 in funds to initialize the transfer of funding grants to us...

texasinafrica said...

This is why I never answer love letters from the Congo.

Anonymous said...

Hey! Free trip! Sounds great to me, you international schmoozer!

Mr. B. said...

Hmmm...

Does your university perhaps have "ambitious aspirations to be one of the top three public research universities in the world [sic]"? That's the tune being tootled at my place...

If so, maybe you could tap the administration for travel funds. After all these types of speaking engagements are the way for your institution to get an international reputation.

Best,

Bonzo

Not Important said...

If you happen to be in Beijing, could you stop by and see if Olympic Village is still standing, or has it been razed over and replaced with factories?

Thanks!
GDad

p.s. Please bring back plenty of pictures. And a Chinese phone book. That would be cool.

p.p.s. Does Angry Baker know of your travel itinerary?

Professor Zero said...

Actually, I think this might be real.

That is essentially how we do it at my university (with the difference that we're inviting people we actually know and who understand the system).

I once got a phone call from a professor I knew at a foreign university saying they had decided I would give a talk at a symposium there and they had already sent me my ticket, so I needed to make arrangements to be absent from my university for a week.

I was incredulous, so I said uh-huh, I haven't had coffee yet, let me call you back in a few minutes. I called back and it was real. I went and it was not only all expenses paid, we got honoraria. And the symposium was excellent and a wonderful time was had by all. All participants laughed together about our strange experience of getting these phone calls out of the blue.

I think you should seriously consider investigating and then going to China.