Hong Kong foot? (Body)

These days my students are learning about expressions when seeing a doctor. We talk about symptoms 症狀(zheng4 zhuang4) of different diseases. When talking about the athlete’s foot, my students just called it “Hong Kong foot” as what we called it in Mandarin, 香港腳 (xiang gang3 jiao3)

According to Wikipedia, the name “Hong Kong foot” originated from the stationing of the British army in Hong Kong after the Qing Dynasty of China had lost the first Opium War. Not used to the hot and humid weather in Hong Kong, many British soldiers had suffered from the athlete’s foot for wearing their military boots without good ventilation.

In Chinese, we put hand 手and foot 足 (another name for 腳) together to call siblings. When two persons, though unrelated, are very close to each other like siblings, we’ll say they 情同手足(qing tong2 shou3 zu2) In English, you work “tooth and nail,” while in Chinese, you 胼手胝足(pian2 shou3 zhu2), you work so hard that the skin of you palms and soles thicken.

When you’re scurrying or acting in a great bustle, we say 手忙腳亂(shou3 mang2 jiao3 luan4) But on the contrary, if you work with great efficiency, we’ll say you’re 手腳俐落(shou3 jiao3 li4 luo4). 俐落 means efficient, brisk, neat and clean. And we have a similar expression when praising someone who has his feet on the ground—腳踏實地(jiao3 ta4 shi2 di4)

With the current nuclear crisis in Japan, many nuclear power plants under plan or construction have been stopped. When you stop something in the middle of it, we say we “chop it at the waist,” 腰斬(yao zhan3). 腰 is your waist. The phrase originates from a way of executing in ancient China, which is seemingly very inhumane from today’s point of view.

As its name suggests, the executed convict was cut right into half from his waist. The executed wouldn’t die at once, but bleed consciously to death. It is said that one of the executed had dipped his finger into his own blood and wrote the word 苦(ku3), meaning bitter or painful, on the ground seven times before he died.

The most common execution at ancient times was probably beheading, 斬首(zhan3 shou3), or more orally, 砍頭(kan3 tou2). 首is another way to call your head. Many novelists have written how the family of the executed bribed the executor to ask him for a俐落的execution. An unhappy executor might take a blunt knife and torture the executed. What a time of 紅包(hong2 bao)! (red-envelop, bribery)

I’ve been busier these days as I got some extra work to do. But I certainly will manage to keep writing and posting on this blog. I’ll never let this blog 腰斬

症狀=症状

香港腳=香港脚

手忙腳亂=手忙脚乱

手腳俐落=手脚利落

腳踏實地=脚踏实地

腰斬=腰斩

斬首=斩首

Wolf’s heart and dog’s lungs? (Body)

Five convicts on death row were executed last Friday. The last execution was in last April, when the Ministry of Justice resumed enforcing capital punishment verdicts, which ended an unofficial moratorium on the execution of death-row inmates in 2005.

Three of the executed donated their organs. But I read that one of the donatees, who’s on top of the list, had refused to receive the kidney on knowing it was from an executed convict.

Same thing happened in 1999 after Chen Jin Xing, a death-row convict for kidnapping and killing an entertainer’s 17-year-old daughter, was executed. One donatee refused his lungs for fear that she would be like what we called 狼心狗肺(lang2 xin gou2 fei4), literally meaning to have a wolf’s heart and a dog’s lungs. She passed away soon.

I have no right to comment on this act of refusal. It’s the donatee’s call. I'm just surprised to know that this metaphor狼心狗肺should have been regarded this way by some people. It is used to describe those sinister rascals by debasing them as animals, similar to衣冠禽獸(yi guan qin shou4) I had mentioned in “Clothes make the man.” Since the wolf, 狼, sounds the same as 郎, a general title for young men, especially from a woman to call her lover as in 情郎(qing2 lang2), we sometimes say 郎心如狼(lang2 xin ru2 lang2) to depict a cold-blooded man who has mistreated his woman.

On the contrary, we use heart 心and liver肝 to call our babies as in 心肝寶貝(xin gan bao3 bei4), be it a lover or a family member such as a son or a daughter. Liver plus gall 膽 as in 肝膽相照(gan dan3 xiang zhao4)would be for friends who trust each other, fight for the same cause and even will die for each other, literally meaning to show your liver and gall to each other. It’s similar to 推心置腹(tui xin zhi4 fu4), where heart 心and belly腹 are involved.

The organ gall 膽(dan3) is used to refer to guts. 大膽(da4 dan3) means bold. If a soldier is very brave and would risk his life daringly in battle, we can use the term 一身是膽(yi4 shen shi4 dan3) to describe him.

With Chen Jin Xing’s case in 1999, different from the lady who had refused his lungs, the donatee who got Chen’s heart said he changed his mind and accepted the heart only after the doctor told him it was one’s brain, but not heart, that accounted for his behavior.

Indeed we use a lot of phrases related to the heart and the intestine to describe a person. With someone who’s kind-hearted, we’ll say he has 好心腸(hao3 xin chang2), good heart and intestine. As for someone like Mother Teresa, we’ll use 菩薩心腸(pu2 sa4 xin chang2), to have the heart and intestine of Pu-sa, a Goddess of Buddhism. On the contrary, for a heart of stone, it’s 鐵石心腸(tie3 shi2 xin chang2), a heart and intestine of iron and stone.

Last but not least, for an impressive experience that you will always remember, it’s 刻骨銘心(ke4 gu3 ming2 xin), an experience that will be inscribed on your bone (骨)and heart.

衣冠禽獸=衣冠禽兽

心肝寶貝=心肝宝贝

肝膽相照=肝胆相照

菩薩心腸=菩萨心肠

鐵石心腸=铁石心肠

刻骨銘心=刻骨铭心

The deer on my heart (Body)

In Justin Bieber’s One Time, he sings, “. . . butterflies in my stomach won’t stop stop.” Here “butterflies in someone’s stomach” refers to the nervous or excited feelings one have. Some students showed an expression of disgusted when I explained the phrase literally. We have a similar expression in Chinese to describe such feelings when you see someone you have a crush on, we say 心頭小鹿亂撞(xin tou2 xiao3 lu4 luan4 zhuang4), the deer on your heart’s stampeding.

You心頭小鹿亂撞when you see your 心上人(xin shang4 ren2), the one on your heart; that is, the one you love or have a crush on. You might be absent-minded thinking about your心上人. 心不在焉(xin bu2 zei4 yan). 焉 means here, your mind is not here. You feel 傷心(shang xin), sad, or 心碎(xin cui4), heart-broken when you see your 心上人 is with someone else.

You’re hard-headed because you’re not easily moved or deceived. In Chinese, we have a similar expression 硬著頭皮(ying4 zhe tou2 pi2), to harden one’s scalp, but with different meaning. For example, it is known just an hour before a play starts that the protagonist can’t make it for an accident. Being the only one who knows his part, though you’re not prepared, you have to pluck up your courage, leave your nervousness behind, walk onto the stage and just do it. You are left with no other choice but硬著頭皮to do it.

When you’re troubled by some problem you’re unable to solve, you’ll say 這問題讓我很頭大(zhe4 wen4 ti2 rang4 wo3 hen3 tou2 da4), literally meaning “this problem really makes me big-headed.” But in English, big-headed means conceit. Now we take this English expression and make a Chinese phrase 大頭症(da4 tou2 zheng4), big-headedness.

A couple of months ago I kept hearing a commercial on ICRT, an English radio in Taiwan, from an English teaching institute, where it said, “Do you have trouble learning English grammar? Let our experts help you and solve your大頭症” English teachers to cure you of your big-headedness?

Hearing this wrong expression, I really had an impulse to call this institute and tell them, being an English-teaching institute with so many “experts,” they really should pay more attention not to make errors of this kind.

When a friend goes to you for a shoulder to cry on, you want to play the role of a good listener and say, “I’m all ears.” In Chinese, when you’re ready to listen to others, especially advice or teaching form your superiors or someone you respect, you say 洗耳恭聽(xi3 er3 gong ting), you wash your ears and listen respectfully.

If you’re worried about something or someone, or you’re missing someone a lot, you may say 牽腸掛肚(qian chang2 gua4 du4) to describe what it is like to be haunted by those thoughts. 牽掛 means to worry, to have something on your mind. 腸 is your intestine while 肚 is your belly, stomach. Though your intestine has nothing to do with your thought, I think here we use it for its long and winding shape, comparing it to the subtle feelings that never seems to end. 

Last year I got the admission of a grad school but was replaced because I forgot to check in to the school on the designated date, which was nothing like me to do. I was visiting China and left this all behind me. Perhaps I

took it too lightly, which is 不把它放在心上(bu4 ba2 ta fang4 zei4 xin shang4), not keep something in your mind. It turns out that next week I have to take another entrance exam for another grad school, which means I have to cut down on my writing for the coming week and 專心(zhuan xin), focus my mind on preparing for it.

But please 放心(fang4 xin), relax and don’t worry. I’m talking about cutting it down. Even if I won’t show up for a whole week, I’ll come back when I’m done with it. Though I’m not well-prepared, I’ll 硬著頭皮to finish the exam.

心頭小鹿亂撞=心头小鹿乱撞

傷心=伤心

硬著頭皮=硬着头皮

這問題讓我很頭大=这问题让我很头大

大頭症=大头症

洗耳恭聽=洗耳恭听

牽腸掛肚=牵肠挂肚

專心=专心