a prime example of something lost in translation

The first time I lived in China I studied Chinese at university with other foreign students. The vast majority of them were from Mongolia, some from Korea, and few from Japan, and one guy from Finland who never talked to me. There was also one British girl but she studied in a different department of the college so I rarely saw her. The result of this situation was that I had very few people I could speak English with. Some of my classmates spoke a little English, but the majority did not. I clearly do not speak Mongolia or Korean or Japanese. So, in order to be friends, we had to rely on Chinese, which all of us were just beginning to study, to communicate.
One of these classmates was another girl about my age from Japan (most of my classmates were significantly younger). She lived across the hall from me in the dorms. She is one of the kindest people I have ever met. We have recently reconnected on facebook.

A few months back she sent me a link to a blog post she had written about me. I'll link to the blog below in the original language. But, here is a very rough translation that one of the students who lived with us helped me with. I'll put my comments in italics.

"Asian (Mongolia, Korea, Japan) students at the University are majority, but European or American are rare. When I was living in a dorm room, there was American Jill, just across the hallway, very friendly, always smile and wave whenever we met. After getting close, sometimes Mongolian girls, Jill plus I, like a group members, we went to eat together. One time Jill and I were walking down the street outside the university and concerned about unusual look from other unknown people. When local high school students passed by, they said "hello!" meaninglessly. We were being glanced at. It seemed like stranger - Jill shrugged and was silent with troubled face, but I felt a little bad. Of course, they don’t have bad thought, but that made us get tired.
Jill was in the basketball club and she loves sports, she usually played with Chinese students, the whole Chinese terms of the game completely unknown to me. Even though our friendship was not deep, one day Jill invited me "Let’s visit my house", I went with joy. She already left the dorm, living in an apartment. She treated me with her cooking. She used Taco sauce which was sent from United States. But instead of a tortilla is a feast in the comfort of cake volume of takeout Chinese food. Yes, Noo! ! The volume tortilla cake? ! ! Was surprised and, surprisingly is a substitute. (Not sure) Here she is talking about a thin tortilla-like thing the Chinese eat with Beijing duck. They are much thinner than traditional tortillas, but it's much faster than making your own homemade ones. Also, we would fry them and make tortilla chips. As she said, it was only a substitue.

Jill's house is in Oklahoma, she said it is close to Mexico so they usually eat tacos. In Jill’s city, there are few white people, so she said she is minority.In the city it was really honored to be served the food we rarely have chance to eat.I could not forget the taste of that, but I tried to make taco again although there wasn’t taco sauce in the city?
This part makes me laugh. What on earth did I say in Chinese that made it sound like I am a minority? And I suppose in relation to China I suppose Oklahoma is "close" to Mexico, but I honestly don't remember trying to communicate that idea. Also, we "sometimes" eat tacos. Not "usually" eat tacos. So funny. I think it's funny because I can remember so many instances like this in language learning...times where you thought you had communicated one thing but later you find out you had actually communicated something entirely different. I also remember the early days with this group of friends she is describing having to stop a story for a few minutes to describe one word before we could go on with the story. I also remember us once calling eyelashes "hair of eyes." We all knew that probably wasn't the proper Chinese word, but we also knew we all understood each other.

● Most delicious things I ate at Jill’s house: Jill’s handmade tacos
● Most surprising thing at Jill’s House: Some photos from previous study in China, full of Bansokou arms (photos of our arms covered with band-aids). If you want to study in China from the United States, there are mandatory vaccinations, the number is overwhelmed. Japan did not need vaccinations, mixed feelings.
● Worse thing at Jill’s house: I was treated killing sweet chocolate cake.(how much sugar did you put to make this cake?! She made the cake by using cake mix sent from the United States, very valuable thing. I pretended to eat the cake like it is delicious . As I think the cake is a really valuable thing to her, I smiled, kept eating and couldn’t tell “help me please”. Now I think again, maybe it wouldn’t make her hurt if I had told the truth that it wasn’t that good.)Anyway, Jill had the best hospitality to me. Thanks Jill!! HA! I think of the gazillion times I was in some one's home having to eat something terrible and yet pretending to enjoy it. Little did I know I was creating the same situation for someone else. And who would have ever thought chocolate cake would be the perpetrator.

Here is the link to the blog in the original language: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/ubrumongol/26793673.html