Advertisement
Published: December 10th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Halim and Eugene
Our Indonesian Co-Worker Halim Gunawan and his son Eugene, quite possibly the cutest kid in all of Asia. Chinese, in the verbal form, has a little over 400 monosyllabic sounds (says John Pomfret, author of
Chinese Lessons (a fantastic read)). The problem for foreigners and the untrained ear is to hear the amazingly subtle and highly intricate art of Chinese tonal speaking. Each phonetic sound has four or five tones (and then from there, the definition of the word relies entirely on context. I can ask my Chinese teacher about a new word I learned - any word, really, and after a solid five minutes of multilingual arguing, gesturing, and firing off of synonyms, she will finally say, “Oh, Fish? You were trying to say “fish”! Oh, yeah, that’s about right, but you need to drop the last tone a bit more…”
Flatly verbalizing
yu doesn’t say a whole lot - there are over 215 different characters that all sound like
yu. So, from here, one must rely on the other mono-syllabic words surrounding
yu and carefully placed dips and swoops to further define the mystical two-letter word.
*
yu or 与, means “to give” -- keep your nose level while saying “you”
*
yú or 鱼, means “fish” -- nod your nose up while saying “you”
*
yǔ or 雨, means “rain” -- nod your down and then swoop up while saying “you”
*
yù or 玉, means “jade stone” -- now nod your nose down sharply while saying “you!”
Four down, 211 to go!
In order for one to be completely understood, one has to dive into the mind-numbing array of ancient characters and move beyond conversational Mandarin. Wikipedia claims that basic functional literacy begins with a working knowledge of 2,000 characters and a standard Mandarin dictionary contains over 10,000. Of the 10,000 characters, perhaps only 4%!c(MISSING)an claim to have pictographic origin (like 山,
shan or mountain) while 80-90%!a(MISSING)re “phonetic complexes consisting of a semantic element that indicates meaning, and a phonetic element that indicates pronunciation.”
Foreigners attempting to speak mandarin may be frustrated to no end; oddly that same dilemma of being understood often permeates the daily lives of both native and fluent non-native speakers. Often one will see two 中国人
Zhōng guó rén (Chinese people) in the depths of discussion, momentarily pausing to “write” a character with their index finger of one hand onto the palm of the other hand. The two conversing then both nod in understanding and continue
chatting. In
China Road, the author Rob Gifford notes that in most places around the world, public policy can be safely verbalized and then documented, while in China, seemingly the land of verbal rhetoric and long patriotic speeches, the actual public policy as almost never spoken. Because of lack of clarity due to the inherent qualities of the language, Chinese formal announcements always find themselves written and then posted for the people to see and read -- leaving little room for interpretation.
Enough about the language... Time to tell of our Chinese Thanksgiving!
The evening of November 26th everyone gathered to celebrate an American Thanksgiving (the Canadians had theirs a full six weeks earlier), known to Mandarin speaking Chinese as 感恩节,
Gǎn' ēn jié, literally meaning “a perceived node of kindness.” Our
perceived node of kindness started off with a bicycle ride to the supermarket. Hidden in the aisle of imported goods, between packages of spaghetti and bags of American chocolate, sat a small jug of Carlo Rossi wine, shipped some 5,000 miles from the valleys of California to a dusty shelf in Yangzhou, China. We also enjoyed fish sticks, fruit salad (China-style, with lots of mayo),
TsingTao Beer Pyramid
Only the finest, most popular, (and nearly cheapest) 3.1 beer in all of China passed our rigorous standards and found itself served at the feast.! shrimp with pineapples, pistachios, lamb chops, and onion rings (of course!). Also present at the feast were slices of imported cheese cakes, brownies, and about fifteen minutes into the overly generous meal, two specially-acquired imported turkeys rolled into the party. Turkeys don’t roost on this side of the world and to 1.5 billion people, turkeys, 吐绶鸡, or
tǔ shòu jī are only seen in cartoons and translated English children’s books. Evidently,
tǔ shòu ji is the Chinese phonetic equivalency of the word
turkey, although it literally means “expectorate ribbon chicken” (?). We have also learned that 火鸡,
huǒ jī, or "fire chicken" is also a common name for the uncommon bird. They were shipped frozen from somewhere in North America as a complete package (cranberry sauce and gravy in frozen bags stuffed inside the bird) and the cook had to drive to Shanghai (three hours away) to purchase the two buggers at, apparently, an unruly price.
Talking with the cook about the pistachios served that evening, we learned the green half-split nut usually finds its way into most banquets, especially weddings and holiday meals. Not served solely because of its salty, flavorful characteristics, nor because of its perfect
Rainy and Elizabeth
note the flushed skin thanks to a proper banquet experience... coupling capabilities with a cold beer, but because of the
name bestowed upon the nut. 开心果,
kāi xīn guǒ, or “open heart fruit” earned the name because if its inherent “split” personality. The word for happiness, coincidentally, is 开心,
kāi xīn so it would only seem logical to serve a fruit destined for happiness at any special occasion.
On the opposite side of the room, not too far from the feast, was a beautiful display of Chinese banquet-style culture - a beer pyramid stacked seven cans high. Every Chinese party we’ve experienced thus far follows a simple feast format where a flushed face, the result of a bit too much
bai jiǔ or
píjiǔ , is completely acceptable and for the most part, encouraged. Toasting is mandatory, particularly among the men, as they move from table to table, drinking like fraternity boys and loudly exclaiming
kuài lè, kuài lè, or “fortunate blessing, fortunate blessing!” The tell-tale sign of any Asian with more than one cocktail in their recent history is that of a flushed neck and face; our Irish heritage (especially Kelly’s) guarantees a nearly full-time flushed face with or without the help of Chinese cocktails. This epidermal
Kelly and Dennis
A toast to the cook! trait, coupled with a goofy personality, has on more than one occasion provided a perfect faux-visual indication that we are properly enjoying the party at hand.
We polished the evening off with a rousing visit to the school's karaoke bar, singing a mix of popular Chinese music and classic Western tunes - everything from Brittany Spears to REO Speedwagon. While we did not have a 5 km Turkey-Trot or a football game on this fourth Thursday of November, we did enjoy a wonderful evening, China style.
From our table to yours, we wish you heaps of pistachios, at least one small beer pyramid, and maybe even an onion ring or two.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.155s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 10; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0882s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Nick Sandy
non-member comment
Man, sounds so rad.. I'm going to start calling it a perceived node of kindness.