I swear (Chop suey)

Recently I've been teaching part time as a substitute at a very prestigious senior high school, from which I resigned years ago. It's the top high school in the middle part of Taiwan, and I'm glad to have the chance to review what it is like to teach elite students.

The first day when I heard some student swear in a vulgar language during the break, I couldn't help looking around to see who did it. It’s not that I don’t know the trend of language so as to be so fussy. It’s just that it was not such a frequent happening back when I was teaching here. There was a moment when I got mixed up as to my whereabouts. Am I in my night school ?

Same thing happened four years ago when I resumed my career and started teaching at a private high school. I was surprised to hear those pretty girls, with angel looks and in their cute uniform, spit out curses which were considered vulgar and would hardly be heard from a girl of that age back in my time.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against swearing, or using four-letter words under some circumstances. In fact, I think swearing is an indispensable part of a language. In some situations, “A curse is worth a thousand words!!” You got to swear to let steam off. Nothing else will do as well. I rembmer watching a program on Discovery, where an experiment had proved that swearing really worked in helping the durability for pain.

I swear but for the swearing I do every day on my way driving to work, hundreds of lives would have been killed--I come, I drive, I swear. If you’re on the road during the rush hours on a daily basis, you know what I mean.

My friend Spenser told me every summer when he is asked by students to write something on their year book, he always writes, "Life doesn't make any fucking sense." It is the conclusion he gets from his some forty years of life. Privately I had tried once to omit the word "fucking" to see what difference it made to this motto of his. To be honest, without this word, I have to say his quote at once loses the power and vital.

Funny the few languages I know all have two things in common when they swear. They love to give “regards” to others’ mothers, and female sex organ is inevitable. In a Taiwanese film “Dust in the wind,” 戀戀風塵(lian4 lian4 feng chen2),I heard the grandfather sending “regards” to, instead of someone’s mom, but “third sister” when he cursed in Taiwanese. (幹伊三妹) This is quite an extraordinary exception, which I’ve never heard elsewhere. I don’t know whether it’s a very old usage, or just a rare personal habit.

I don’t know much about the different dialects of the Chinese language. But I do know Chinese say 肏(cao4) as Americans say fuck. In fact, the parts of the word have shown you the meaning of it. The upper part 入(ru4) means “into,” while the rest part 肉(rou4)means flesh.

In Taiwanese, people say 幹(gan4) to mean the same thing. That’s why I said previously that it was weird for us to hear people in China use so many phrases with it in their daily lives*.Recently I’ve found out one thing: Compared with肏and fuck, don’t you think that幹 sounds more powerful and vital, for it resonates more considering the parts of the vocal organs involved and the way it is pronounced? I’m not alone to feel this way. I just read about how some Americans decided to give up “fuck” and use the stronger 幹when they curse. Try all of them loudly to see if you agree with me.

As to the other element, sex organ. It’s really hard for me to tell you anything in writing. All I can tell you is that of all the things I try to avoid in class, 雞排(ji pai2), the chicken chop, is one of them, for it sounds similar to the female sex organ in Taiwanese. And another one is 藍鳥(lan2 niao3), blue bird, if pronounced in Taiwanese, is the counterpart for male. If you curse not only by “giving regards” to someone’s mother, which actually means to refer to someone as your son or daughter, but also mentioning the sex organ, that would be very strong and vulgar. For those who work in Taiwan as teachers, if your students ask you to say either of these, they are “trapping” you. Or I heard some foreigners reverse it by asking their students to say 發球(fa qiu2), to serve a ball in Taiwanese, which sounds like “fuck you.” (What is teaching all about?  To trap or to be trapped?)

To be honest, I doubt if it’s easy for me to take someone as my bosom friend if he never swears, I mean in private even when he’s full of rages. I think either he’s too “well-mannered” or he’s too “composed,” too “hypocritical” to seem “human.” Perhaps that’s why you sometimes hear friends, especially males, greeting each other with “幹, . . .”

But I also know what it will look like if a teacher, as I am, swears in class. That’s why I have to hold back a slip of tongue like, “幹! Why don’t you keep your mouth shut and listen to me?”





Note: Please refer to “What I won’t say in class” posted in Jan.

戀戀風塵=恋恋风尘

幹=干

雞排=鸡排

藍鳥=蓝鸟

發球=发球