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:
- township
- village
- countryside
- country
- rural area
- native land
- home village
- 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
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