The Two parrots

This not-too-dirty-but-not-really-clean joke comes from a great blog on the Sina blog network, the Chinese equivalent of Blogger.
Simplified Chinese Reading Study Intermediate: The Two ParrotsThe joke is about a woman whose new parrot can’t seem to stop saying one particular come hither phrase. The phrase so embarasses the woman that she tries to take action, but her plan doesn’t quite work out the way she wanted.
I had a bit of trouble translating the phrase 近朱者赤, which appears to mean “If you stand next to something red, you’ll become red yourself.” This idiom isn’t in the dictionary, but I believe it means that people are influenced by the things in their environment.
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鹦鹉 – yīng wǔ – Parrot
上床 – shàng chuáng – [colloquial] To sleep with sb., have sex
淑女 – shū nǚ – A wise and virtuous woman
高雅 – gāo yā – Dainty, refined
神父 – shén fù – Preist
粗话 – cū huà – Vulgar words
祷告 – dǎo gào – To pray
感化 – gǎn huà – A corrective influence
实现 – shí xiàn – To be realized (as wishes / dreams)
话说某位女士一时兴起，买了一只母鹦鹉。没想到带回家里，它说的第一句话就是: “想跟我上床吗？”
女士一听，心想: 坏了，外人还以为这话是我教的呢，这不把我的淑女形象全给毁了。于是她想尽办法，想交那只鹦鹉说些高雅的东西，可是那只母鹦鹉算是铁了心了，只会说一句话: “想跟我上床吗？”
…… 怎么办呢？在那位女士失去主张的时候，听说神父那儿也养了一只鹦鹉（公的），而且那只鹦鹉，不但不讲粗话，反而是个虔诚的教徒，每天大部分时间里都在祷告。于是那位女士去找神父求助。神父明白她的来意之后，面色微难的说:“这个，很难办呀，其实那只鹦鹉，也并没有刻意的教它什么，它之所以这么虔诚，也可能是长期在此受熏陶的缘故吧。”
神父见女士很失落，便说道: “这样吧，你把那只鹦鹉带到我这里来，我把它们放在一起。希望经过一段时间，你那只鹦鹉能够被感化。我只能做这些了，有没有效果，就看神的旨意了……”
女士一听，也只能这样了，不是有句话叫: 近朱者赤吗？试试吧。于是她把鹦鹉带到神父那里。神父依照诺言把两只鹦鹉放在了一起。开始母鹦鹉还有些拘谨，看那只公鹦鹉在笼子的一角，默默的祷告，还真不忍心打扰。可是她还是管不住自己，终于朗声说道:“想跟我上床吗？“
公鹦鹉听到这话，停止了祷告，转身看了看母鹦鹉，忽然泪如雨下: “感谢上帝，我祷告这么多年的愿望终于实现了……”
 
There once was a woman who bought a female parrot. But little did she know, when she brought the parrot home she found it could only say one sentence: “Will you sleep with me?”
As soon as the woman heard this, she thought: “Oh no! If anyone else hears the parrot speak they’ll think I taught the parrot to say that, it’ll destroy my reputation as a virtuous woman.” By way of a solution, she thought maybe she could teach the parrot to say something dainty instead, but it seemed the parrot had a heart of iron, it would only say one thing, “Will you sleep with me?”　
What was she to do? Just when she had about given up, she heard of a priest who also owned a parrot (a male one), and moreover his parrot not only didn’t say vulgar things, it was actually a devout disciple; it spent most of its time in prayer. So the women went to see the priest. When the priest understood the woman’s reason for coming, he said a little sadly, “This is a hard problem to solve. In actual fact, I didn’t teach my parrot anything, maybe the reason it’s like that is because it’s spent a long time in this [church] environment.”　　
The priest saw the woman’s disappointment, so he said, “How about this: bring your parrot here to me, I’ll put it with my own. We can hope that after a little while, your parrot will be correctively influenced by mine. This is all I can do, whether it will work or not is up to God…”　
The woman listened [to his suggestions], and [also thought] that this was her only option, after all, isn’t there a saying: “Proximity to red will turn you red”? She figured she might as well try it. So the woman brought her parrot to the priest. The priest honored his promise and put the two birds together. At first, the female parrot was a little cautious, seeing the male bird over in one corner of the cage, silently praying, she didn’t have the heart to disturb him. But [after a while] she couldn’t help herself, and finaly said, “Will you sleep with me?”
The male parrot heard her say this, stopped praying, turned around and looked at her, and suddenly with tears streaming down its face said, “Thank you God, the thing I’ve prayed for all of these long years has finally happened…”