In the language mix of Norwegian, English and Chinese it was necessary to be tri-lingual to understand what these people were talking about.
What Mrs. Nelson said was that her husband was in the backyard building a house (gai igaa fangtze) for the pigs. Which suggests another story:
Earlier in our discussions we saw that my father wrote to a friend in U.S. that he had “made a couple of efforts to give talks but I have no idea if the Chinese had any idea of what I was trying to say”. He did not mention the story of the sermon that a new missionary preached to his Chinese congregation. The full sermon was devoted to admonishing his hearers to show love, concern and willingness to listen to one’s “jidze” (chicken). What he intended was to do admonish his puzzled congregation that men should show love, concern etc. for their “chidze” (wife).