Another Conoco Taiwan local staff lunch outing was to a dumpling restaurant. I was absolutely amazed at how many dumplings my colleagues could each eat. Even the women could eat something like 25 of them at one sitting.
The simplest dip for dumplings is soya sauce and vinegar (醋 cù). One can also add one or all of the following: chilli oil, sesame oil, garlic paste, ginger, chopped spring onion, coriander. Anything that one fancies really, I guess.
My youngest colleague, Mary Fu, then only 21, had her saucer filled with something like one part soya sauce and four parts vinegar.
Cray, as usual, immediately remarked, “哇，你很会吃醋！wa, nǐ hěn huì chī cù / Wow, you very much know how to eat vinegar.”
This was an obvious pun, because 吃醋 chī cù / “eat vinegar” in Chinese means “to get jealous”, so Cray was saying to Mary, “You get jealous easily (You’re very good at eating vinegar).”
Mary’s instant response was, 我只会吃湿醋，不会吃干醋 / wǒ zhǐ huì chī shī cù, bù huì chī gān cù / “I only know how to eat wet vinegar, not dry vinegar”.
(Taiwan, 1975)
I like the expression...and does 干醋 really mean something or she just made it up?
ReplyDeleteThere's no such thing as 湿醋 shī cù / "wet vinegar". 吃醋 / chī cù / "eat vinegar" in general = to be jealous. 干醋 gān cù does occur, meaning "being jealous about something that has nothing to do with one [the person who's feeling jealous]".
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