The Cold War that had been simmering between our staff for months finally came to a head as Gail put down the phone. "Our Chinese lessons aren't easy enough," she leveled an icy glare at Brendan, who slipped his copy of "Quotations from Mencius" into his knapsack in furtive response. "We need a Chinese lesson that is so dead simple," she continued, "that even someone who can't even find China on a map can learn some of the basics of the Chinese language."

And that's how all the fun ended here at Popup Chinese, at least for this lesson. This week we've followed the advice of our "student-friendly" teacher Gail, which means our popular fun-with-Tang-Dynasty-etymology and how-did-the-Manchu-say-that podcast segments are gone, replaced with a highly-repetitive beginner lesson that will teach how you to ask who people are, and learn to understand the answers. This is a very simple lesson for anyone just starting to learn mandarin and looking for an easy way to fluency. So enjoy it while you can. The etymology can wait for another few days.