A boy needs a hobby

The latest gem from the recording studios.....     "What did you do last weekend?"   "I went to the farm to watch the vegetables."     Now, it's tempting to suppose that this is just another instance of the common Chinglish inability to distinguish between watch and see (and indeed look at).  One verb is usually enough for the Chinese, so they tend to use see for all instances of vision.  But even "going to see (or look at) the vegetables" is a bit of an odd thing to say.  Where is the fascination in viewing inert objects which could satisfyingly occupy even an hour or so, let alone a whole weekend?   And there were two or three instances of this curious idea in our scripts today, all occurring within a general theme of 'hobbies & interests'.  (The Chinese are BIG on hobbies & interests - but never, alas, pastimes - and you are considered a social deviant if you don't have one; collecting something is pretty much compulsory, even if it's only pencils.)   So, watching vegetables, it would seem, is now being promoted to the nation's middle school students as a worthwhile leisure time activity.   It will probably become an official job designation soon.  If a few tens of millions of peasants become full-time 'vegetable watchers', the unemployment problem will be solved.       And I get to see these great shifts in social policy right at their inception.  It is one of the few things that makes recording educational materials a satisfying job.