Chinese sayings: 31 (牛頭不對馬嘴 / 牛头不对马嘴；答非所問 / 答非所问)

 

牛頭不對馬嘴 / 牛头不对马嘴

niú tóu bù duì mǎ zuǐ

“cow head not fit horse mouth”

答非所問 / 答非所问

dá fēi suǒ wèn

“reply not that-which ask”

The literal breakdown conveys the meaning clearly.  These two sayings refer to doing something or giving a reply that is not quite right, doesn’t match what’s being asked for, or doesn’t fit logically.

牛頭不對馬嘴 comes from 

明·馮夢龍《警世通言》

Ming [dynasty], Feng Menglong, Stories enlightening the world / Stories to caution the world / Ordinary words to warn the world (published 1624)

第十一卷：「皂隸兜臉打一啐，罵道：‘見鬼，大爺自姓高，是江西人，牛頭不對馬嘴！’」

    I’m encountering this situation more and more often now.  

    Not only in my teaching, which is understandable as students don’t always understand what is expected of them, especially when it comes to grammar questions.  For example:  I ask, “What’s this word here?” expecting them to identify it as a verb or a noun or a particle, a ritual I go through every week to reinforce the grammar as we go along, and students will translate it instead — it happens so much that I’ve started to doubt my English now (why are they failing to understand my English??!!).

    It also happens outside my teaching, which is not so surprising because I tend to mix with OAPs (old age pensioner).  

    I mention this, because as I get more and more of such non sequitur conversational responses, I’m aware that the time will come when I myself will also be doing a lot of 牛頭不對馬嘴 / 答非所問.  

    It’s not a matter of “if” but “when”.

Empathetic schadenfreude /幸災樂禍 / 幸灾乐祸 xìng zāi lè huò (London)

schadenfreude:  (MBP dictionary) pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune

幸災樂禍 / 幸灾乐祸 xìng zāi lè huò / “rejoice disaster happy disaster”:  (MBP dictionary) to be gratified by others’ misfortune

People in my circles are increasingly reporting misplacing things, or not being able to remember what they might’ve done with them, e.g., house keys, Freedom Pass.  (You can tell what age group these people are in, from the mention of Freedom Pass [free travel pass for retired people here].)

    It’s not even a simple matter of devising a system of putting such things in a specific spot, so that one only has to go to that usual place for it, without even having to think about it.  

    I have my house keys and Freedom Pass held together on a cord, which I wear around my neck, and hang on the inside knob of the main door of my flat when I come home.  As I have to go to and through the main door to leave the flat, that’s where I’ll be sure to find them.  

    One day, however, I got home with an urgent need to go to the loo, so I hung them on something en route to the loo, then forgot about it.  The following day, I’d arranged to go and do a massage, but couldn’t find my keys and Freedom Pass in their usual position.  Total blank in my head as to what I might’ve done with them.  Big panic, more because I was worried about what’s happening to my brain, although it’s a big hassle as well to get the keys and travel pass replaced.

    Sometimes, it’s being quite sure one’d put them down/back in the usual place, then failing to find them there.  This is puzzling enough.  What’s worse is having no idea at all (total blank in the memory bank) where one might’ve put the item(s) — as in the case of my house keys and Freedom Pass.

    So, when my friends tell me they can’t find some item(s) and have no idea how it could’ve happened, my response is one of great relief:  I’m glad I’m not the only one.  (No consolation, I know…)

(London, 2024)

Connotations behind the use of language: 01 (English)

 

One of my evening programme students was a part-time translator before taking up an electrical engineering course at my suggestion.  

    He was passionate about TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), but had trouble earning anything at all, never mind a stable income.  This was around 1995, when TCM over here was still a bit sluggish in taking off.  I said it’d be difficult for him to convince people that a Westerner like him could do acupuncture and all that, and that he should go and get qualified in something like engineering that would get him a job easily and earn him a stable income, and then he could go and practice TCM as a hobby.

    He duly went off to do a course in electrical engineering and started working on big projects (earning ￡250/day, round about 1997).  I then noticed that he’d punctuate his conversations with “Do you know what I mean?”, which would get shortened to “Know what I mean?” with such frequent usage, then even down to “Nar mean?”. 

    I found this incredibly irritating, not so much due to how often it was trotted out, more because of what it implies:  that the speaker is saying something the listener might have trouble understanding, so the speaker needs to check every other sentence.  

    I can understand it if the speaker was explaining something technical (e.g., electrical engineering, TCM, Chinese grammar), but not in a conversation about everyday life scenarios.  I got so irritated at some point I’d say, “Yes, Connor*, I know what you mean.”  (*not his real name)

    I put this down to builder-/construction-trade-speak, as he was working on engineering projects like the CTRL (Channel Tunnel Rail Link) and Heathrow T.5.  

    Nearly thirty years later, I find someone else, albeit not a native-speaker of English this time, using a similar expression: “Do you understand?”, often reduced to “You understand?” or “Understand?” as it’s used so much.  What does this person do for work?  Yup, he’s a builder.  

    So, it looks like it’s a common expression in the construction business — perhaps because they’re often having to explain construction-related technical terms/concepts to people, which is therefore understandable (haha, couldn’t resist the word play here…).  

    However, if I’m right about why they say it, then how is it we do not find doctors doing it to patients and their family when explaining the whys and hows of the illness(es)?  So, maybe, not just because it’s technical…

    Anyway, the effect it has on me is that it makes the listener feel stupid.  The speaker needs to constantly check that the listener does understand, which is a bit insulting, not just irritating from the repetition.

(London, 1995 / 2024)

The human side to the bureaucrat (London)

 

Most people’s experience when they have to deal with a bureaucrat is not always warm, just to use one description that comes to mind — there must be lots of others. 

 

    Having to have any contact with a bureaucrat usually conjures up the image of some onerous task that one would rather not undertake.  

    It doesn’t help when/if the bureaucrat is not always warm/kind/sympathetic, which is the case in my personal experience of encounters with quite a few bureaucrats in two of the three countries I’ve lived in.  

    In some countries/cultures, the bureaucrat is often officious, with a fairly puffed-up ego about his/her position (having the authority to make your life easier — or not…; I’m not even talking about soliciting a bribe, although that is behind the attitude of some of them in some countries/cultures).

    With this background in mind, it was with great trepidation that I went along after my first two years in London to one of the government offices to apply for a National Insurance number.  An appointment was made for an official to come to my flat and have a chat with me.  (Those were the days when they had the time to travel to you.)

    The interview day arrived.  I let the official in.  As we sat down, I started off by saying that I had a great fear of officialdom, that I didn’t like dealing with bureaucrats from my past experience.

    At the end of the interview, with the outcome to arrive in the post, I went with him to the main door of my basement flat, walking behind him.  

    He went straight for the door in front of him.  I said, “Oh, that’s the door to the cellar under the stairs.  The way out is here, on your left.”

    He turned round and said, “Given how you feel about officials and bureaucrats, you should’ve just let me walk in there, and locked the door behind me…”

(London, 1979)

Definition of bureaucrat given by the MBP dictionary:  

Quote 

an official in a government department, in particular one perceived as being concerned with procedural correctness at the expense of people's needs: 

the unemployed will be dealt with not by faceless bureaucrats but by individuals.

Unquote

Chinese sayings: 30 (入鄉隨俗 / 入乡随俗)

 

入鄉隨俗 / 入乡随俗

rù xiāng suí sú

“enter country follow custom”

Another saying whose literal breakdown makes it clear.  The English equivalent is “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”.

    This was thrown at me by my sister-in-law during one of my visits home to Singapore.  She got fed-up with my voicing my horror at how Singaporeans mangle English (called Singlish, which they’re proud of) and Mandarin (a lot of which is pretty much dialect structure, vocabulary and usage rendered in Mandarin sounds).

    I’d be interested in how many other cultures / language groups have a saying that conveys a similar meaning.

    The concept of 鄉 / 乡 xiāng is a bit less straightforward, though.  A glance through the list found online will give you a good idea:

1. township
2. village
3. countryside
4. country
5. rural area
6. native land
7. home village
8. home city

    The list above shows you how multifarious the Chinese cultural perspective is on the concept of 鄉 / 乡 xiāng, which has to be interpreted according to the context — a word I constantly repeat in my teaching.  

    In the saying covered here (入鄉隨俗 / 入乡随俗 / rù xiāng suí sú / “enter country follow custom”), home village / native land would not apply.  It’d be more like “country”, or even just “place”, i.e., the person going to “Rome” in the English equivalent (When in Rome…) could be from the same country (Italy in this case), just a different place (not Rome).  This supports my point in the blogs* about translating/interpreting problems.

*If you’re interested, go to:  

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2024/05/problems-behind-translating-01.html

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2024/05/problems-behind-translating-02-london.html

Oxymoronic comment (London)

 

A student-friend aged 80 asked in her text if I was at Swiss Cottage doing my Long G (Longevitology energy adjustment) volunteering.  I pointed out that the Swiss Cottage sessions are on Saturdays, and today’s Sunday.

    She texted back saying, “My poor old brain is slowing down fast!”

    Love the oxymoron.

(London, 2024)

Chinese sayings: 29 (林棲谷隱 / 林栖谷隐)

 

林棲谷隱 / 林栖谷隐

lín qī gǔ yǐn

“forest perch valley hide”

The literal breakdown of this saying makes it pretty clear:  perching in the forest and hiding in the valley.  It refers to the act of hiding away from the rest of the world, or to a hermit/recluse.

    Playing the Chinese crossword puzzle game on my phone, I notice how many Chinese proverbs there are for referring to becoming/being a hermit.  (Historically in China, a lot of them are Buddhist and Daoist practitioners.)

    In the context of the modern world, it is a very attractive option:  just leave all this horribleness behind and take off into the woods or the caves, surrounding oneself with / losing oneself in some kind of wilderness.  

    My second reaction, though, is:  how is one going to survive?

    The definition of “hermit/recluse” is one who lives in seclusion/solitude.  The Chinese equivalents 隱居 yǐn jū / “hide dwell” (to hide oneself away and live) and 隱士 yǐn shì / “hide person” (person who hides away [from the rest of society]) are only about living alone, not actually totally cut off, so it is possible to become a recluse, as one would still have the support structure up to a point.

    By “support structure”, I mean the system that provides the daily necessities.  

    I can imagine growing one’s own food, even to the point of self-sufficiency — certainly in a location with more clement weather conditions (e.g., the tropics where fruit and veg thrive throughout the year, with no growing seasons and cut-off periods of dormancy). 

 

    What, though, does one do about things one cannot produce independently without a lot of trouble and entailing a lot of tools, e.g., clothes and shoes (bound to get worn out at some point and need to be replaced)?

    A chap a year below me at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) for my first degree course, a London-born Pole, told me when he was working on his PhD (on some aspect in classical Chinese grammar) that once he’d completed his PhD, he’d go somewhere and lead a self-sufficient life, growing his own food, with as little to do with the outside world as possible.  

    He was aware that he’d need to rely on the outside world for things he cannot produce himself, so he started doing a woodwork course, to make/repair cabinets and furniture, in order to earn money to buy things like cooking oil (bad example, as one might actually be able to dispense with it in one’s diet, but you know what I mean).  

    We lost contact after that, so I don’t know if he did actually manage to achieve his dream.  

    And if he had indeed become a recluse, he wouldn't be reading this blog so that he can get in touch and update me.