Singaporeans like to say “so cute!” of things that please or amuse them.
The latest example is my nephew’s response to my saying that the Korean for “sweetcorn/maize” sounds like “oh su su”, which matches the Chinese for it: 玉蜀黍 yù shǔ shǔ.
(I’d been sending him examples of Korean words that I’ve picked up from the period dramas I’ve been watching, as evidence that Korean is very similar to Chinese. I also notice two-character compounds that are different in word order from modern Chinese, which — just a hunch, as yet to be investigated — proves that Korean is from archaic Chinese.)
My nephew saying “so cute!” to the sweetcorn example brings to mind what happened in 1992 when my third sister and her husband came over to London. She’d been hospitalised for stress, then the doctor advised taking more time off, so they grabbed an off-season deal (it was February) and came to London.
I’d invited an evening student Frazer Gleig, 12 years older than I (a fellow snake and a pubbing pal after class), along to the dinner out in Chinatown, because Frazer was great fun and would provide nice variety of company for my visitors.
At one point, Frazer trotted out his usual description of himself: 笨老头 bèn lǎotóu / “stupid old man”. My sister laughed: ”So cute!”
Frazer’s face was a right picture: Western men do not get called cute at 51. He didn’t know how to respond.
(London, 1992)
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