2011年7月28日 星期四

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

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

Sauce:  Here the sauce refers mainly to soybean sauce醬油(jiang4 you2).  In Chinese cuisine, (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.

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)

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

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