Amy Winehouse (Chop suey)

The moment when I heard the anchorwoman announcing Amy Winehouse’s death, I thought my ears and English had failed me. My doubt lasted until the newspaper confirmed me the truth.

I was surprised by the news, which is, on the other hand, not so surprising considering her life style. Her fight against drinking and drugs addiction was a public battle. I read a report online about her fear of joining the “27 club.” According to her former assistant, she once told him she had a feeling that she’s gonna die young.

When someone dies young, we’ll say he’s 英年早逝(Ying nian2 zao3 shi).  英年, one’s prime year; 早early; 逝die. These days as I’m listening to some of her songs, I have a regret that a voice like hers should be gone so early. Though we haven’t got an official confirmation about the cause of her death, I think it won’t be a wild guess to say it was related to her drinking and drugs addiction.

It’s really a waste to die so young, talented or not. But, would Amy Winehouse be Amy Winehouse without drinking or doing drugs? Was she still able to write those songs if sober? Was it that she was so much troubled emotionally that she had to resort to alcohol and drugs, or her addictions had given her inspiration 靈感(ling2 gan3) to write her works?

I’m not saying drugs and alcohol had helped create her songs, which is out of the reach of my lore. I’m just recalling some great poets or artists in the Chinese or Western history, who, like Amy, were known for their heavy drinking or bizarre behavior when creating their works.

I’ve mentioned poet Li-Bai 李白 in my previous writing Raise your glass in May. 陶淵明, Tao Yuanming, (365-427), who had created a Chinese version of Utopia in his 桃花源記(tao2 hwa yuan2 ji4), is another big drinker poet who often completed his work drunk. And in the Western world, poet Coleridge is said to have composed his “Kubla Khan” after taking opium 鴉片(ya pian4).

張旭, Zhong Shu, a prestigious calligrapher (658-747), was nicknamed 張顛(zhong dian), Nutcase Zhong, who would scream and scurry and write after drinking. His works were characterized with their wild and unpredictable style, which was called 狂草(kuang2 cao3), highly cursive script. 狂 means wild, whimsical or crazy. It is said that he had once dipped his hair into the pool of ink and wrote with his hair. No wonder he would be called張顛, but there is no denying that his calligraphy is extraordinary.

(From www.flickr.com/photos/kun1119/2473757958/)

酗酒(xu4 jiu3), addicted to drinking or嗑藥(ke4 yao4), doing durgs, certainly doesn’t equal to talent or creativity. People like Amy or陶淵明or張旭certainly know what alcohol or drugs would do to them. Somehow they chose to embrace them, or were they too weak to get rid of them? Did Amy prefer to live a fireworks-like life rather than a healthier and longer (but anonymous perhaps) one? Or was she simply too fragile and indulgent to escape from the doomed “27 curse?”

靈感=灵感

陶淵明=陶渊明

桃花源記=桃花源记

鴉片=鸦片

張顛=张颠

嗑藥=嗑药

Seven things after you open the door (II) (proverb)

鹽 Salt:  When an elder wants to boasts to a yougster about his rich experiences in life, he may say 我吃的鹽比你吃的飯還多(wuo3 chi de yan2 bi3 ni3 chi de fan4 duo), “The salt I’ve eaten is more than the rice you’ve eaten.” He’s implying that you’d better listen to him, who has lived much longer and accordingly has much more experiences.

Salt is the origin of the taste 鹹(xian2), salty. In Taiwan, 鹹濕片(xian2 shi pian4) has become a euphemism for porn film. 濕means wet. My guess is that sex involves a lot of sweat and body fluids. That’s why we call it that way.

醬 Sauce:  Here the sauce refers mainly to soybean sauce醬油(jiang4 you2).  In Chinese cuisine, 滷(lu3), braising food with soybean sauce and water, is a way of cooking frequently applied. 滷肉飯, braised pork rice, for example, is everyday life food that you can see it everywhere in Taiwan.

In Taiwanese, we have often heard a Xiehouyu that goes as黑柑仔裝醬油 (in south Min dialect), containing soybean sauce with a black bottle.

What happens when you take a black bottle as the container of the soybean sauce? You never knew that your mediocre-looking, quiet next-door neighbor was a writer until one day you learned from the news that he had won the Nobel Prize. Under such situation, you will want to use this Xiehouyu. You cannot tell what’s inside the black bottle without opening it. You never really know a man only by his appearance. So the latter part of this Xiehouyu would be –看不出(in south Min dialect), can’t tell.

醋 Vinegar: There is a well-know anecdote in the Chinese history related to vinegar. It is said that房玄齡Fang Xuanling (579–648), one of the most celebrated chancellors of the Tang Dynasty, had a jealous wife. Once Emperor Taizong would like to bestow two beauties upon Fang as his concubines. The jealous wife refused to let the two women in. Emperor Taizong summoned the wife and gave her two choices. She was asked either to accept the two women or drink a cup of poisonous wine. Without hesitation the wife drank up the cup of “poisonous wine,” which was later proved to be vinegar.

Powerful as Emperor Taizong was, he had to yield to this woman’s strong will and withdrew his order. From this anecdote we get the term 吃醋(chi cu4), literally meaning “eating vinegar” to refer to the feeling of jealousy. If you have a jealousy girlfriend, you may say, my girlfriend loves to “eat vinegar.” 我的女朋友很愛吃醋 (wu3 de nu3 peng2 you3 hen3 ai4 chi cu4)

I once read a report on a couple who have been married for over eighty years. Their children described the old lady as 醋罈子(cu4 tan2 zi3), a jar for vinegar, because she got jealous even when her husband talked to their care-giver.

So you may also call your jealousy girlfriend醋罈子. And when you irritate her by talking to another girl, you may say you’ve accidentally “turned over a vinegar jar” 打翻了醋罈子(da3 fan le cu4 tan2 zi3)

茶 Tea:  Suppose you are thirsty and eager for a cup of tea. You walk around for a tea house and finally find one. Don’t you ever say “I came here to look for tea,” for “looking for tea” 找茶(zhao4 cha2), pronounces exactly the same as 找碴, finding faults. It would be provoking to say so.

In Hongkong, Yum cha 飲茶(yin3 cha2), drinking tea, is a very important part of their life. According to Wikipedia, tea house is called “Dim Sum House” by westerners, which means “snacks house.” Chinese has a long history of drinking tea, which has developed into an art of 茶道(cha2 dao4), Way of tea, and got flourished in Japan.

The seven things represent the basic needs for a common daily life. Yet for different classes of people, there are different levels. Take the last item tea, for example. It could be nothing more than a drink that’s to quench your thirst, or a high-end art that’s so complex (and not affordable to everyone) as茶道. To what degree do you want to “toil” yourself depends on how you define the seven things.

我吃的鹽比你吃的飯還多=我吃的盐比你吃的饭还多

鹹濕片=咸湿片

醬油=酱油

滷肉飯=卤肉饭

黑柑仔裝醬油=黑柑仔装酱油

房玄齡=房玄龄

我的女朋友很愛吃醋=我的女朋友很爱吃醋

醋罈子=醋坛子

打翻了醋罈子=打翻了醋坛子

飲茶=饮茶

Seven things after you open the door (I) (proverb)

What are the seven things after you open the door and start the day? For the ancient Chinese, it would be 柴(chai2)、米(mi3)、油(you2)、鹽yan2)、醬(jiang4)、醋(cu4)、茶(cha2);namely, firewood, rice, oil, salt, bean sauce, vinegar and tea. We call them 開門七件事(kai men2 qi jian4 shi4),the seven things after you open the door and start the day.

These seven things were daily life necessities. Though trivial, they were what the general populaces toiled themselves around for. Though the first item has been replaced in the modern society, the seven are combined together to mean our necessities in life.

柴 firewood: Though mostly it has been replaced by gas oven today, it is still in frequent use in our daily language. For example, when referring to those who are suffering from a famine in Samaria, we will use the term骨瘦如柴(gu3 shou4 ru2 chai2),as thin as a piece of firewood, to describe them.

When a man and a woman, both horny, hit it off, we’ll say they are like 乾柴烈火(gan chai2 lie4 huo3),dry firewood encountering raging flames. To the arbitrary and rude people who are trying to force others, we have a term橫柴入灶(heng2 chai2 ru4 zao4). 橫柴means to pose a firewood across; 入灶 , to put the firewood into a stove. When putting a piece of firewood into the oven, you should send one end after the other, instead of putting it across. If you try in the latter way, you are either arbitrary or too inflexible to change to cope with the changing situation.


米 rice : Generally people in the south of Yellow River take rice as their staple food (while the north, noodles.) To those who idle their lives away, contributing nothing to the society, we’ll scorn them as 米蟲(mi3 chong2), a rice bug, which would be found in the rice if it is not carefully stored. Rice turns to 飯( fan4) when cooked as in 吃飯 (chi fan4), having a meal. To those who are good at nothing but eating, we’ll call them 飯桶(fan4 tong3), a cooked rice bucket, which carries the same scorn as 米蟲.


These days to “debt” or not to “debt” has been the question for the Obama government. Those who want to raise the debt ceiling might say it’s hard for a government to do what they should do without enough money. It’s like a housewife, however skillful in cooking, can’t serve her family a good meal without rice. As said in Mandarin, 巧婦難為無米之炊(chao3 fu4 nan2 wei2  wu2 mi3 zhi chui). 巧婦, a skillful housewife, 難為 hard to achieve, 無米之炊, cooking without rice.


油 Oil: This indispensable element in cooking is often used as a connotation for under-the-table profits. The head of the purchase unit in a big enterprise, for example, is often said to be a job with “a lot of oil and water.” 油水很多(you2 shui3 hen3 duo) So when you’re trying to grab illegal profits or taking advantage of others, we’ll say you’re 揩油 (kai3 you2 or ka you2).


When someone is smooth-tongued and speak glibly, we’ll call him油腔滑調(you2 qiang hua2 diao4), not in a favorable way. 油滑 means oily and slippery; 腔調, tone. In 金瓶梅 (Jing ping2 Mei2), which I talked a little bit about in April, 西門慶(xi men2 qing4) likes to call his concubine 小油嘴(xiao3 you2 zui3), little oily mouth when she is saying something witty or tricky.


When do you need to apply oil to your soles? It must be when you need to run away from an undesirable situation, like running into your x that had an ugly breakup with you, or, one of your debtees. In such cases, you need to腳底抹油(jiao3 di3 mo3 you2) and take off.


(TO BE CONTIUNED)


柴、米、油、鹽、醬、醋、茶=柴、米、油、盐、酱、醋、茶
開門七件事=开门七件事
乾柴烈火=干柴烈火
米蟲=米虫
吃飯=吃饭
巧婦難為無米之炊=巧妇难为无米之炊
油腔滑調=油腔滑调
西門慶=西门庆
腳=脚

“Hitting wife” vege (Food)

 from 松青食材百科事典

This is the vege you often see in the hot pot, 火鍋(huo3 guo), or in 湯圓(tang yuan2), dumplings made of glutinous rice flour served in soup in Taiwan. We call it 茼蒿(tong2 hao) in Mandarin but jokingly we’ll call it “hitting wife vege” 打某菜 in South Min Dialect.

It is rich in carotene, iron and calcium, which help you with your blood and bone. But what does it have to do with the act of hitting wife?

Try cooking it yourself and you’ll know. You labor yourself in the kitchen washing off the attached sand and cook it. You open the pot. Is that all the big bunches of vege you have just put in?

It is said that once a farmer brought back a big basket of茼蒿for his wife to cook. When it was served, he was unsatisfied with the small dish of vege and thought his wife had eaten part of it while cooking it. The poor wife got a good beating by her husband, who didn’t know that this vege shrank a lot from cooking.

This is a hearsay about the origin of this special name. From the story I get two points. First of all, food was very precious in my grandfather’s days and getting full was a big deal. Second, the status of this wife at home was nothing more than that of a servant. She was supposed to cook the food that didn’t “belong to” her and shouldn’t be enjoyed by her before her husband or any other members of the family. In addition, her husband would beat her whenever he gets an excuse.

To write this article, I googled a little bit about hitting wife. A report in 2009 claimed that one-fifth of British men hit their wives according to a study by the government of UK. The top reason for them to hit their wives is that they dress themselves too revealingly. Another report says that in the U.S., a wife is beaten by her husband every some ten seconds.

The famous author魯迅, Lu Xun (1881-1936) once said that in Chinese society, people oppressed and abused those who are under their class. The lowest-class men could, at least, let off their steam by beating their wives.

In Taiwan, we have a saying in South Min Dialect that goes as “those who hit their wives are animals like pigs, dogs, and bulls.” 打某豬狗牛. My interpretation for this saying is that it’s advisory for those who take hitting wife for granted, which might be nothing unprevalent back in the old days before women’s liberation. Only when hitting wife is so common do you need to degrade it into beast level to talk people out of it.

Back to my grandma’s days, women couldn’t sit at the dinning table and eat until the other family members had finished their meal. Those were days when food was rare and precious and most people were starved. How much food would be left for women, who actually cooked it? No wonder some women would resort to “stealing” it. No wonder the husband in the story would be alert and hit his wife only for a dish of vege.

I’ve heard a lot about how Shanghai men are such “good husbands” that they “go home from work with a fish in one hand to prepare dinner for the whole family.” In my recent Internet surf I found a saying which is said to have been passed around Shanghai women, “The first-class men are afraid of their wives, 怕老婆(pa4 lao3 po2); The second-class men scold their wives罵老婆(ma4 lao3 po2); The third class men hit their wives打老婆(da3 lao3 po2). Shanghai men seem to have been depicted as “small husbands” that is a “mutation.”

Taiwanese writer 龍應台(long2 Ying4 tai2) has written an article praising the Shanghai men she has discovered as extremely “good husbands,” who will cook for their wives when there are guests at home, when all their wives have to do is dress up and make themselves look good.

I have to say I’m very cautious and conserved about classifying people only because where they are from. A non-wife-hitter will never hit his wife even though every neighbor of his is doing it or whatever his wife has done. And in today’s society, when gender equality has been emphasized and practiced, there are still men, regardless of their educational background or social status, hitting wives as they want.

Does it make a good husband or good wife only because he/she cooks for you? Should we label a husband or a wife as incompetent only because he/she seldom goes into kitchen and cook? I want to say “equality” shouldn’t be interpreted that way.

Of course as a woman and wife, I’m glad I can eat whatever I want when I’m cooking. And I can sit at the table with my family to enjoy the meal. Next time when you enjoy a dish of 茼蒿on the table, show some gratitude to the one who has prepared it, be it your husband or wife, who has endured the heat in the kitchen and labored for a while to serve it.

火鍋=火锅

湯圓=汤圆

魯迅=鲁迅

罵老婆=骂老婆

龍應台=龙应台

我要小解! (II) (Euphemism)

Aside from 聽雨軒(ting yu3 xian)，I’ve also seen 觀瀑亭(guan pu4 ting2), a waterfall-watching pavilion, as a name for the restroom at a restaurant. These names have really beautified our instinctive act.

When a typhoon hits and brings a huge amount of rain, we will hear the news of Shi-men Dam discharging water, 洩洪(xie4 hong2). This practice has been compared to a person’s “discharge of water.” That’s why some people will say “I’d like to 洩洪” as an indirect expression for peeing. In Taiwan, shi-men Dam 石門水庫(shi2 men2 shui3 ku4) is a big and well-known one. When someone’s fly is open, we’ll say to him “your Shi-men Dam is open.” 你的石門水庫沒關好(ni3 de shi2 men2 shui3 ku4 mei2 guan hao3)

In Taiwan, when eating out with friends, people often “fight” to pay the bill to show their generosity and friendliness. Very often someone will disappear quietly during the meal and you think he is going to the bathroom. But when you finish the meal and want to pay, you’ll find someone has done it. In regret you realize that you’ve been forestalled.

On the other hand, there are some misers who will do the same. They disappear near the end of the feast and stay there longer than necessary. They do this to avoid paying. We call this act 尿遁(niao4 dun4). 尿is urine, or to pee, while遁 means to escape. Such practice of尿遁is not limited to the above situation. Anyone who tries to run away from an embarrassing or miserable situation by saying that he’s 內急(nei4 ji2) and excusing himself to the bathroom could be called尿遁. 內急is another way to imply that you wanna pee. 內is inner, 急, urgent; you feel an “inner urgent call.”

With so many homophones in Mandarin, sometimes we’ll divide a word into several parts and pronounce them separately to refer to one word. For example, when introducing oneself to others, those surnamed 張(zhang)  will usually mention it as 弓長張(gong chang2 zhong) so that people won’t mistake it as another homophone surname章(zhang), which is referred to as 立早章(li4 zao3 zhang).

Such practice is also applied to euphemism. When mentioning feces, for example, sometimes we’ll say 米田共(mi3 tian2 gong4). Combined together they become the word 糞(fen4), feces. The act of muckraking is called 扒糞(pa2 fen4), raking feces, since what you reveal is all dirty tricks.

One time one of Confucius’ pupils dozed off in class, Confucius made a remark as 朽木不可雕也(xiu3 mu4 bu4 ke3 diao ye3)，a rotten piece of wood can’t be carved; 糞土之牆不可污也(fen4 tu3 zi qiang bu4 ke3 wu ye3), a wall of dirty mud can’t be contaminated. (since it’s already dirty) Here 糞土means dirty mud.

This reminds me of an idiom 發憤圖強(fa fen4 tu2 qiang2). 發憤 means to make a resolution ; 圖強, to strive for progress. These days we jokingly change the idiom as發糞塗牆, which pronounces exactly the same. You “generate” feces to coat the wall. . . . Yuck!

屎(shi3) is a synonym of糞. Unfortunately the word 史, history, pronounces the same with it. It’s hilarious if you associate the two when someone mentions any sort of “history,” such as history of Chinese literature中國文學史(zhong guo2 wen2 xue2 shi3). Long ago I read about some scholar publishing a book with the title 中國文學尿(zhong guo2 wen2 xue2 niao4) as a parody of history of Chinese literature.  

It is important not only what you say when you want to go to the bathroom, but when or how long you go. Otherwise people might think that you are avoiding something by尿遁.

(THE END)

聽雨軒=听雨轩

觀瀑亭=观瀑亭

洩洪=泄洪

石門水庫=石门水库

關好=关好

糞=粪

糞土之牆不可污也=粪土之墙不可污也

發憤圖強=发愤图强

發糞塗牆发粪涂墙

中國文學史=中国文学史

我要小解! (I) (Euphemism)

When my sister-in-law, who had just come back from China for a family reunion, asked the waiter where the bathroom was at a restaurant, it took him two seconds to realize what she was referring to. She called it 衛生間(wei4 sheng jian) as people call it in China. Here in Taiwan we usually say 洗手間(xi3 shou3 jian). If you prefer a more direct expression like toilet, 廁所(ce4 suo3) would be used.

I think the expression洗手間is somewhat English-tinged because in English you say “wash my hand” as a euphemism for excreting. 洗手 has been one of the euphemisms in Mandarin referring to going to the bathroom.

Sometimes kids around anal stage love to say 大便(da4 bian4)，小便(xiao3 bian4) to attract attention or to “irritate” their moms because they know these expressions will certainly raise some eyebrows and they’ll giggle at those eyebrows. 大便is excrement while小便, or 尿液is urine. 大便and 小便 can both be used as verbs.

But ladies and gentlemen don’t say that. They use euphemisms instead. An old and literary one is解手(jie3 shou3), which literally means to “release one’s hand.” It is said that during the Ming Dynasty when the government was trying to immigrate people from the too densely populated provinces to the scarcely populated ones, to prevent the reluctant people from escaping, they bound those people’s hands together. When nature called, as a result, people had to ask the soldiers on duty to release their hand, 解手

In English people use No 1, No 2 as a distinction while in Chinese we use 大(da4), big, 小(xiao3), small as you learn in the previous paragraph. Probably from解手 we get小解(xiao3 jie3) to mean pee. But strangely we don’t have the term 大解(da4 jie3) as a counterpart.

As 小解 pronounces the same as 小姐, girl, or euphemism for street girls, here comes the joke: “A high-ranking official was visiting a village. On the tour bus he yelled「我要小解!」(wo3 yao4 xiao3 jie3) several times but was ignored (because the female receptionist had misinterpreted it as「我要小姐!」). In the end the edgy official screamed, 「我要小解!」With a flush the disconcerted receptionist murmured, ‘Will I do?’”

A counterpart for 小解 is出恭(chu gong), to defecate. According to Wikipedia, during an imperial examination, which took several days, there were two boards出恭, 入敬(ru4 jing4) at the entrance of the exam. Those who would like to go to the bathroom had to take a出恭board, literally meaning “exiting respectfully,” and a入敬board, literally meaning “entering respectfully” when they went back. As time goes by, people seem to have forgotten the latter part 入敬, but only remember出恭, which originally referred to both “numbers.” But later it has changed to refer to “No 2” only.

Bathroom has changed a lot as time goes by. In the past it was usually built separated from the house and was called 茅坑(mao2 keng) or 茅廁(mao2 ce4). The name tells you that it’s only a primitive and humble “pit” as the word 坑suggests. Fortunately I was a city child, and not old enough to have the chance to use one. I’ve heard stories about how little kids had fallen into a茅坑, some of whom were even drowned. I’m really really sorry for them, to be honest.

In 張愛玲(zhong ai4 ling2), Eileen Chang’s novels, sometimes she describes how the maids go out to 倒馬桶(dao4 ma3 tong3) and chat with each other in the early morning. For those 公子(gong zi3) or 千金小姐(qian jin xiao3 jie3), the gentlemen and ladies in a family, they were too delicate to go out to the茅廁. They would use a bucket in their room, which is called馬桶. It is said that in ancient time the bucket was made in the shape of a horse, which is why it is called 馬桶. Even the modern toilet is called 抽水馬桶(chou shui3 ma3 tong3), a flushing toilet, though it is no longer in the shape of a horse. In the old times it was the maid’s duty to clean the bucket, 倒馬桶. No wonder those公子 or 千金小姐needed so many maids. With their dressing, they would need lots of aids when nature called.

As the emergence of the modern bathroom, we have different names, such as 盥洗室(guan4 xi3 shi4)、化妝室(hua4 zhuang shi4) and the ones I mentioned above. These days some restaurants take a very “romantic” name for the restroom. They call it 聽雨軒(ting yu3 xuan). 軒is a delicate name usually for someone’s study. 聽雨 means listening to the rain. You go to the bathroom to “listen to the rain.”

Well, sitting here for the whole morning, I guess I need to “listen to the rain.”

(TO BE CONTINUED)

衛生間=卫生间

廁所=厕所

茅廁=茅厕

張愛玲=张爱玲

馬桶=马桶

化妝室=化妆室

聽雨軒=听雨轩