Recycling (London, France)

There’s a recycling area in the village of the French farm.  I went with farm mistress Jeanette one day when she was taking some stuff there.  She found pots of chrysanthemum left at the place that were not totally dead, so she picked them up to take back to the farm, saying, “I often go home with more things than what I’ve come here with!”

This reminds me of what I used to do when I was working at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) on two Chinese computer research projects.

They’d set up recycling bins as academics get through a lot of paper.  

My paper is always used both sides before I bin them.  

One day, when I went to give the bins my used paper, and saw that people had thrown out paper that had only been used on one side, I fished them all out before I threw in my own sheets.  So, even worse than Jeanette, I always (not “often”) went back to my office with more paper than I’d gone to the bins with.

On that note: when I started doing a part-time MA a few years later, all the note-taking at my lectures were done on the backs of paper that had been used on one side only.

(France, 2007; London, second half of 1980s / 1992–94)

Makes sense (London)

Took mainland Chinese friend to go and pick wild garlic and wild leek.  

Saw that she was not picking the leaves that were in good condition, and asked her why.

Her answer: “If even the worms don't want them, would I?”

Haha, makes good sense.

(London, 2022)

Cultural behaviour: 02 (London)

From my experience, the Chinese are quite extreme in their social interaction:  

• If they don’t know you, they can be cold and uncaring.
• Once they know you, even if it’s indirectly (e.g., through a friend or a friend’s friend), they’ll often be warm and generous.  (I had written to a then-boyfriend in 1988 with my theory about this, but that’ll have to wait for another blog.)

Yes, yes, I know these are generalisations, as lots of statements out there often are.

I was at the negative receiving end of the second extreme on one occasion.

A mainland Chinese woman, Mei, with whom I’d become acquainted when I interpreted for her at a hospital appointment, took me to the meat counter at a Chinese supermarket in Chinatown, saying the woman who worked there had been a neighbour of hers back in Shenyang, NE China.  In the typical Chinese way, Mei wanted her ex-neighbour, Yao Li, to be aware of my existence (as her friend), so that Yao Li could give me nice service next time I went there.  That’s the bit I was saying above: about your being given good treatment even if it’s an indirect relationship.

A few days later, I took a Singaporean lady there to buy some pork for her daughter’s birthday meal.  The Singaporean lady asked the mainland Chinese man on duty at the counter a few questions about the different cuts, which the bloke then started to look a bit unhappy about — presumably because it was taking up time, although there weren’t many people about.  She then said, “I’ll have this piece.”  

It was at this point that I took advantage of the lull to ask, “Is Yao Li in today?”  The man gave a terse, “No,” which is not an uncharacteristic Chinese trait, so I didn’t think anything of it.  If she’s not in, she’s not in, as far as I was concerned — just an idle enquiry, that’s all.

The man picked up the piece of pork.  The Singaporean lady said, “Can you cut it up for me?”  The man threw it back onto the tray, and said, baring his teeth, “不卖 / bù mài / “not sell”!!”

Huh??!  What was all that about?

I later told Mei about this incident.  Mei said, “Ah, you said the wrong thing to the wrong person.  That bloke and Yao Li absolutely don’t get on, so when you asked if she was in that day or not, he assumed you were her friend, so you became his enemy too.  The Singaporean lady was with you, so she also became his enemy.”  

Wow, so not only did we become his enemy by extension, which on the personal level is bad enough, he even refused to do business with us just because of that.  This is the extent to which the Chinese will go for people who are friends or otherwise.

(OK, I know, I know, he was already getting fed up of her asking those questions about the different cuts, and he was only an employee, so it was no skin off his nose if he didn’t make a bit more money for his employers.  By all accounts, a lot of them almost deliberately boycott the business in covert protest at the low wages, but then if they’re illegal, they should be grateful that they’re taken on at all.)

A week later, Mei and I were in Chinatown again.  The man was standing outside the supermarket, looking sheepish.  Mei had apparently told him off after that episode, and wanted him to apologise.  I refused to approach; just stood a few yards away, waiting for Mei to rejoin me.  

The point is: he was only looking sheepish because there’s now a positive link between us (me being Mei’s friend, and he was caught out behaving badly towards her friend), rather than the negative one he’d thought we had (me being Yao Li’’s friend).  (Watch the upcoming blog with my theory about this, part of which is already proven by this tale.)

Yet another week later, Mei brought me a sweater top, stripy and pink, as an appeasement.  Said it was from Yao Li, who wanted to express how sorry she was that I, her friend’s friend, had been treated so shabbily by her enemy.

C’est compliqué, as Serge on the French farm had once said*.

* See:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2012/02/conflicting-instructions-france.html).

(London, 2004?)

Cultural behaviour: 01 (Italy)

I’m editing a series of stories at the moment, written by an Italian.  One of the stories features a Georgian, whom the author depicts as Italian-looking in his physical appearance  (dark hair, olive skin) as well as his body language (waving his arms about when speaking).

    This reminds me of a book by an American academic who’d bought a place in Cortona in Tuscany.  She said she saw an Italian man talking in a phone booth (book was published in 1996, so no mobile phones then).  He had to step out of the booth to continue his conversation because there wasn’t enough room in the booth for him to wave his arms about.

    Jurek, a year below me at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), told me this story about a tourist in Italy who was driving up to Milan, but got lost.  He saw watermelon pickers working in a field by the road, so he walked up to one of them and asked, “Excuse me, can you tell me which direction is Milan?”  

    The man, arms full of the huge melon he’d just picked, said to the tourist, “Here, hold this,” and passed over the melon into his arms.  

    He then raised his arms in a shrug, spread his hands out, and said, “How should I know?”

(Italy)

A damp squib (Accrington, England)

I grew up with this common saying, “Three things you don’t talk about: politics, religion or money.”

“Not even political jokes,” I’d now like to add.

My first interpreting assignment here in the UK, as a third year BA student in 1979, was up in Accrington (north of Manchester), looking after four mainland Chinese from Nantong 南通, near Shanghai.

Their factory had bought some textile machinery from a firm in Accrington, Lancashire (an area in NW England known for its textile industry).

Although their contract said the British firm would fix any breakdowns, the Chinese were very forward-thinking and asked to come over and be trained on fixing minor problems themselves, because by the time they got in touch with the British firm (they’d have to find an interpreter first, and ring the British side during UK working hours as well, a bit tricky in the timing, given the time difference), identified the problem and the right engineer was found, a visa was obtained, an air ticket was bought, etc, their factory would have lost precious production days.

Outside of the training sessions, the British side would always have someone eat lunch at the factory with them, sometimes even dinner at the hotel.

One day, to lighten the atmosphere, the Brit who was in attendance told a joke:

In East Germany, a Trabant was speeding down the autobahn at way past the limit.  The highway police gave chase.  When they did eventually manage to catch up, they asked the driver, “How does this car go so fast?”  The driver said, “The front wheels are made by the Russians, the rear wheels by the Chinese.”

Silence from the Chinese delegates, then a sort of nasal noises that were meant to resemble polite laughter emanated hesitantly.

(Accrington, Lancashire, England, 1979)

Dictionary definition of a damp squib:

A situation or event which is much less impressive than expected.

The Oriental Yes / No answer: 01

This is one of the linguistic hurdles for the student of CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), because it’s the opposite of the English response.

Q:  Are you British? 

English:  Yes (I’m British) / No (I’m not British)

The CJK answer is the same as in English for positive questions.

The problem arises when the question is in the negative.

Q:  Are you not British? 

English:  No (I’m not British)

CJK:  Yes (I’m not British) (i.e., agreeing with the question)

I teach my students (of Chinese and of English) to say, “Correct,” which makes it unambiguous.

NB:  

I’m throwing in Japanese based on my own (meagre) knowledge of the language, and of Korean purely based on my observations from the traditional Chinese script subtitles in the Netflix dramas that I’ve been watching.  There might be more exceptions to the above “rule” in Japanese and Korean than in Chinese.  I haven’t tested out even the Chinese, as this is a fun-only blog, not a serious piece of writing based on academic research.  All corrections to disprove the “rule” would be welcome.

Language: who has borrowed from whom?

Talking to a student from Malaysia about the origins of the Malay term “mat salleh” for describing white people — thought to have been “mad sailors” for the white sailors in the early colonial days who’d get drunk and behave wildly.

She then added, ‘There is also the term “mat rempit” used for those young guys who race illegally on the roads and highways especially, on their motorbikes.’

Presumably, “mat” in “mat rempit” isn’t necessarily for the whites anymore, just “mad”.

As part of the extra mentoring that I offer students, I replied in Chinese, saying that “mat” certainly looks like the corrupted version of “mad”.  

In Chinese, “mad” = 瘋狂 / 疯狂 fēngkuáng.  

Apart from giving the breakdown of the compound (“mad crazy”), I also gave — as I always do for students who’re up to it and interested — the radicals for the two characters: sickness radical 疒 nè for 瘋 fēng / mad, and dog radical 犭quǎn for 狂 kuáng / crazy.

Then, I suddenly realised that the phonetic component 风 fēng / wind in 瘋 / 疯 is perhaps not purely for the sound / pronunciation element only.  I think there’s a logical contributive purpose.

One of the concepts in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) is “wind”*.  I guess the closest English equivalent, in lay terms, is “draught”:  sitting in a draught can cause one to be ill.  Wind — usually cold, I think, for this purpose — will penetrate the system and cause all sorts of ailments.  Hence, the character for “mad” is written with the sickness radical and wind for the other component.

This, in turn, led me to the Malay term for “being mad/crazy”: kepala angin (/ˈaŋin/, [ˈa.ŋɪn]), which breaks down as “head wind”!  The wind has gone into one’s head, therefore “mad”.

So, is this a coincidence, or did one language borrow from the other?  If it is not a coincidence, I’d say it’s Malay borrowing from Chinese.

*wind:  Google says,

Quote

Wind is one of the six external factors of disease (six Qi or six Yin/Six Excesses). These climates can attack the body, enter the meridians, and cause external diseases; e.g., Cold Wind can cause a cold. Wind is a climatic condition that is observed everywhere, but is given a heightened importance in TCM.

Unquote

(climate in TCM = agents that cause disease)

• If you’re interested, more to be found in: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5234349/