Chinese sayings: 23 (理直氣壯 / 理直气壮)

 

理直氣壯

lǐ zhí qì zhuàng

“reason/logic straight qì strong”

This saying is from 警世明言 jǐng shì míng yán (c.1621) by 馮夢龍 Féng Mènglóng.

    The two problematic words for translating into English are 理 lǐ and 氣 qì.

    理 lǐ is usually defined as “reason/logic”.  “Reason” not in terms of “why” for explaining an action / a situation, but more like reasoning (behind a situation / particular behaviour), therefore logic is perhaps closer in that sense.

    氣 qì has become more commonplace in English in the last few decades (from 氣功 qìgōng, reiki healing), but is still difficult to convey adequately.  It’s usually defined as “energy”, but in the Chinese perspective, it is much more subtle than that.  It’s more like “vital energy”, which governs not only one’s physical strength, but also means “spirit” (as in demeanour, manner, air, bearing).  It is this sense that’s being expressed in this saying.

    理直氣壯 means that when one’s action is backed by logical reasoning (i.e., justified morally/ethically), then one’s demeanour is strong (firm and confident because one is right / morally justified, unflinching, unafraid).  It carries the spirit of “my conscience is clear”.

    Some people use this to do a bluff / double bluff.  

    An example: if someone shouts at someone else in public, people around would almost immediately / automatically assume that the person doing the shouting is the one in the right and that the person being shouted at has done something wrong.  (For this situation, I’m discounting people with mental problems shouting at random.)  

    I’d witnessed a very assertive young woman who’d just boarded the bus shouting at a man behind her, “Don’t touch me!”  Whether or not he had indeed touched her, I don’t know as I hadn’t seen it, but the man’s surprised look would indicate that he hadn’t (it was a packed bus, so there was bound to be some unintentional physical contact).  Or the man was very good at looking like he was the wronged party.  But her shouting at him would probably immediately make people think he had, otherwise why would she do it?  “理直氣壯, that’s why”: she had right on her side (even though it could be bluff / double bluff).

Chinese sayings: 22 (自相矛盾)

 

自相矛盾

zì xiāng máo dùn

“self mutual spear shield”

This saying means contradicting oneself or one thing contradicting another.  In mainland Chinese usage, 矛盾 máo dùn also means conflict, disagreement or a difference of opinion, because the two sides have opposite views.

    It is from the writings of Hán Fēizi (韓非子, c.280 BC – 233 BC), about a man who sold spears and shields.  

    He said to the crowd in the market place: “My spears are so sharp they can pierce any shield.”  Then, “My shields are so strong they can resist any spear.”  Someone in the crowd piped up, “How would it be if you were to use your spear to pierce your shield?”

    This expression can also be applied to oxymoronic situations / statements.  See blog Oxymoronic situation: 02 (Muting oneself) 

DIY dry cleaning (London)

 

Talking to a mainland Chinese friend about this current cold spell (minimums of 0˚C, which is cold enough for London, especially in recent decades) and her offering to let me have her electric blanket since she and her flatmates leave the heating on all the time, I’m reminded of my DIY dry cleaning.

    Winter coats (and sweaters / jeans too) can be dry-cleaned (for smells only, though) by sitting on the back of a chair placed right up against the radiator, if you can’t actually put them on the radiator itself.  The heat will lift off all the smells (eg, food in Indian and Chinese restaurants; cigarette smoke in the old days, especially in pubs and, even earlier, on public transport). 

    An evening class student Pam, who used to come to the pub after classes, told me that after I taught her this trick, she decided to try it out at home. 

    She reported this the following week: 

    As she took her coat to the radiator, she muttered, “She’s wrong, she’s wrong, she’s wrong.” 

    The next day, when she fetched her coat from the radiator, she came away saying, “She’s right, she’s right, she’s right!”

NB:  If you’re going to try this yourself, make sure it’s not a radiator that might start a fire with fabric being so close to it, or one that has an air vent that shouldn’t be covered over (e.g., an oil-filled radiator).

(London, second half of 1990s)

Competitive spirit (London)

In the first few years of my 23 years teaching on the evening programme (then three more on the full time degree programme), the exam results would come out as a P/F (pass/fail) on the announcement board, perhaps because in those days, part-time students were learning Mandarin for fun as they were just interested in the culture, history and literature.  Students could approach the teacher for their specific mark if they were interested.

    One such student in Grade 1 (beginner class) did just that, at my summer party.

    I used to throw a summer party for my students, and a winter one, inviting students from different grades so that they'd get a chance to meet people from other classes.

    This student and I were standing in the garden, away from the rest of the group, so he asked for his exam mark.  I didn’t have any reason to refuse, so I gave it to him.  It was a distinction — at the risk of sounding like I'm downplaying their achievement, it is easy enough for Grade 1 Mandarin as they hadn’t learned too many characters [150 at the end of 25 weeks or so] or words, and the grammar is much less complex.

    He went on to ask if there was anyone else above him.  This is where the well-brought-up Singaporean in me answered before the brain assessed the situation: I told the truth — yes, there was another person with a higher mark.

    He was quite upset about it: “I’ve been attending all the lessons, doing all the homework — and in both simplified and traditional scripts as well.  Yet, someone else got a higher mark!”

    I had to say, “I’m afraid it isn’t always down to how hardworking one is.  Some people are just better at languages than others.  Also, there’ll always be people in the world who are taller than you, more handsome than you.”  He blushed at this.  

    His wife, from Taiwan, standing beside him, piped up: “That’s what I keep telling him!  He's so competitive!”

    He himself had to admit, “That's true.  I was pipped to the top position at Cambridge by one mark [in Maths] and by a girl too.  It upset me for days.”

(London, 1988)

Leaping to great heights

A Spanish friend sent a video featuring men jumping, from a standing still position at ground level, over high stacks of books.

    As a child, I used to see these people in kungfu (Chinese martial arts) films jumping onto garden walls and rooftops.  We'd say, "That's all special effects, tricks for the camera!"

    I was an athlete from age 8 to 18, competing in 100m and 200m sprint, 110m hurdles, and long jump.

    My father suggested I try this kind of training:

With one brick tied to the bottom of each foot,

    1. walk 

    2. then run 

    3. walk up stairs 

    4. run up stairs

    5. jump up onto a higher surface

Repeat above but with two bricks, and so on.

    If you can do the above with two or three bricks, once the weight is removed, your legs will feel ever so light without it, and you should be able to run faster, or jump higher — even to the top of a garden wall, or a rooftop, like those kungfu people.

    It makes sense that one should be able to do it.

    I didn't try the training, because I didn't want my calf muscles to look like a ballerina's.  (I was not that ambitious as an athlete, obviously.)

The brain works in wondrous ways: 10 (Smells) (London)

 

An RI (Raffles Institution) classmate Jong Long and I had gone out on some class errand in downtown Singapore, so he parked his car at the school as it (the old RI site on Bras Basah Road) was nearby.

    We returned to his car after dark (it gets dark in Singapore around 6:30pm).  Jong Long got into what he thought was his car, and then said, “This is not my car.  It smells different.”  (Don’t know how he managed to get in.)

    That was in 1971.  Fast forward to 1997.  A then-student invited me along on her walk through the Yorkshire Dales with two friends of hers.  At one of the places, we asked the B&B [Bed & Breakfast] man to drive us into, and back from, the village for our pub dinner and drinks.  When we followed him to his car at closing time (he had to come into the pub to let us know he'd arrived), he somehow managed to unlock a car that looked like his, then realised it wasn’t his car as it had a different smell. 

(Singapore, 1971; Yorkshire, UK, 1997)

Being spied on

 

After the first popping up in the Chinese crossword puzzle game of a saying used in my lesson with the Shanghai-based student, two more sayings I’d fed the student in two subsequent lessons did the same thing.  They were not very common ones either, so it wouldn’t be a coincidence.

    An old friend has just told me that someone he knows had a private conversation with his wife (wife of the person my old friend knows) over dinner, away from all computers, about buying something.  Up popped that item later on the telly, so Alexa was listening.

    This reminds me of a joke in a Taiwanese magazine in the 80s that I was dipping into for teaching and exam-question material.

    The joke was set in the USSR.  A man turned on the TV.  Being aired was a political broadcast, so he switched to another channel.  Same thing, so he moved to a third channel.  The political broadcast again, so he changed to a fourth.  A big burly man appeared on the screen and said, “If you do that again, we’ll send you to the Gulag [labour camp].”