Chinese sayings: 06 (瞎貓撞到死老鼠 / 瞎猫撞到死老鼠)

瞎貓撞到死老鼠

xiā māo zhuàng-dào sǐ lǎoshǔ

“blind cat to-bump-reach dead mouse”

This means the cat had only run into the dead mouse, it didn't kill/catch the mouse, being blind.  It’s used to disclaim the credit given to one, i.e., one had only solved the problem serendipitously.

Old friend Valerio put a test to me in our WhatsApp message exchanges just now.  It’d started with him telling me one big chunk in my Introduction to the animal collection stories that I’ve been meaning to self-publish is too long for putting within parentheses.  I added as a btw cultural/linguistic practice note that the Chinese reader skips anything within parentheses because it means extra information, therefore optional.  Valerio the Maths Professor then says that the asterisk in Maths plays that role.

So, he then moved on to: how to, in WhatsApp messaging, make two stars on either side of a word/sentence appear without emboldening the word/sentence (with the star not showing up, being there only for the emboldening command).  

I fiddled around and got there somehow, based on the 負負得正 / 负负得正 fù fù dé zhèng / “reverse reverse get upright” / two-negatives-make-a-positive principle.  

Valerio said he had to Google it (and it’s less simple than my method), so he was impressed I got there.  

My response to this is:

瞎貓撞到死老鼠

xiā māo zhuàng-dào sǐ lǎoshǔ

“blind cat to-bump-reach dead mouse”

(London, 2023)

The cross cranes (Singapore)

My visit home in 1993 was after a 14-year gap.

    My eldest sister was keen to show me how Singapore had changed.  She had two young daughters at the time, aged six and four, so she thought a visit to the Singapore zoo (official name: Mandai Wildlife Reserve) would be perfect for a day out to keep me and her little girls entertained.

 

    In response to my protests (that I didn’t like the idea of gawping at animals penned up), she said Mandai zoo is a different concept, and that I’d find it an interesting experience.

 

     Sure enough, it was different, in a way, from my past experiences of zoos: Johor Baru Zoo (in Malaysia across the border) when I was about ten, and London Zoo in 1977.   

    Right next to the ticket window, even before you enter the zoo, was a fried chicken kiosk. Immediately inside the main entrance was a local-fare canteen.  Singaporeans get their priorities right: food first before the long march around the grounds.  (In case the items on offer in the canteen didn’t quite fill the tummy, there were also machines positioned among the trees in the grounds, dispensing snacks in the form of chocolate bars, sweets, crisps.)  

    Belly filled, one moved on to an animal performance area, with a stage section and an amphitheatre, to catch the acts during the scheduled slots (only twice daily, according to their website).  On the day we were there, the stars were a baby elephant and a seal.

    The zoo is beside a reservoir, on a wooded piece of land.  The animal sections are spread out around this wood, so the visitor is taking a walk through the wood, stopping at animal sections dotted about.  For a tropical island 1˚N with average humidity levels around 80%, it is, indeed, a pleasant way to spend one’s day — among the trees and beside the water.  So, she was right: it was an interesting experience. 

    The most interesting part from that day’s visit was when we were walking from one section to another, and my sister suddenly stopped beside the reservoir.  There was nothing else around, so I asked her why we’d stopped.  Her answer, “Just wait and see.”

 

    It was around noon.  We stood there under the trees.  First, one crane flew across the reservoir to where we were, and landed a few feet away.  Then, another one.  Next, a couple more.  A small group after that.  Soon, we were in the company of about one or two dozen cranes, standing around. 

    The cranes then started getting cross, pacing up and down, stamping the ground, back and forth, back and forth.

 

    Eventually, a milk float* loomed up.  The cranes rushed up to it, and the driver was besieged before he’d even put one foot on the ground.   

    He was the feeder, and he was late with their lunch.   

    Haha.  Never seen cranes in a fit of temper before.

 

 (Singapore, 1993) 

 * milk float:  (British) An open-sided van, typically powered by electricity, that is used for delivering milk to houses.

Cultural behaviour: 03 (Taipei)

Tom, one of the three radio operator colleagues at the American oil company Conoco Taiwan, asked if I could give his five-year-old daughter, Florence, some lessons in English.  (Not a lot of people in Taiwan spoke English in those days.)

We then began our Saturday morning lessons at the office.  I started by teaching her the usual basics:  numbers, days of the week, months of the year, then her personal details (surname, name, age, nationality, etc.).  The following week, I’d re-use what I’d taught the previous week as revision, while adding on new material.

A few lessons in, Florence couldn’t remember something.  I said to her, “How can you have forgotten this word already?  I’d only just taught it to you last week!”  

Florence started crying.  I felt so bad.  Perhaps I was being too strict with her.

The next Saturday, I mentioned this to her father.  He said, “No, it wasn’t because you were too severe with her.  She was crying because she was ashamed at not being able to remember it.  She felt that she’d let you down.”

These days (and in the West?), the parent would probably immediately protest and lodge a complaint, if not a lawsuit for emotional hurt.

(Taipei, 1975)

Instinctive cultural behaviour in reverse (London)

During my house-sitting stint in south London, the old neighbour (in his 90s, from Pakistan) from across the road came knocking on the door one day.  

He’d just returned from a family visit in Canada, to find that he couldn’t ring out on his mobile phone, for some reason, so could I give him a hand, he asked.   I went over with my phone to ring the people on his list (someone to fix his boiler, someone to fix something else).  His son was there, too.

The following day, returning from a food shopping trip, I thought I’d check on him, just in case he needed more help.

As the son opened the door, my head was already shaking from side to side, the Indian sub-continent way, even before I asked him, “Has your mobile phone problem been sorted out?”  

And I’m from a culture that doesn’t do the head shaking….  So impressionable!

(London, 2023)

Instinctive cultural behaviour (London)

I had a Japanese student in one of my evening classes.  Let’s call her Yuki.

During the course of the lesson, I’d call out individual students to answer the question I’d put forward to the class.  

Whenever I addressed her in the Japanese way, calling her Yuki-san, her immediate reaction would be to say “Hai!” and bow (even while seated).  

(I could almost feel the military-style heel-clicking as well…)

(London, 1995)

Inadvertent word play (London)

I’ve just learned a new skill:  the channelling of cosmic energy to adjust a person’s balance of 氣/气 qì.  

The practitioners of Longevitology (LG; 長生學 cháng shēng xué / "long life study") have an impressive success record with cancer, stroke, and all other conditions of the internal organs that my style of massage cannot reach (or not to the same deep level).

I’ve been telling people about it, encouraging them to come along for the free adjustment sessions.

My reply to an ex-student’s email asking how I’ve been says:

Quote

LG is adjusting people’s 气 balance using cosmic energy through their chakras.  All free of charge.

Unquote

(London, 2023)

My tennis "playing"

When I first arrived in London, my English friend said he’d teach me to play tennis.  

There were two parts to it, he said: serving, and hitting back.  As one starts the game serving, that was what he taught me first.  

This went on for a few weeks, once a week, then the weather got cold and I started college, so the sessions stopped and I never learned how to hit back.

A year later, someone at university said his parents were going away for the weekend, so he and his siblings decided to have a children’s partying weekend at home, inviting their friends round.  

They had a tennis court at home, so this friend invited me to play singles with him.  I told him I’d only learned a bit the previous year.  When I served beautifully into his court, he said, “I thought you said you’d only learned it for a few weeks?  That was good!”  But when he hit it back to me, I’d either miss it altogether or hit it way up into the air.  We spent more time retrieving the ball than hitting it.

At one point, however, he said something that made me very angry.  I then found myself doing something quite surprising:  not only was I able to hit the ball back properly, I was even able to hit it back into the furthest corner away from him, to make him run all the way across the court for it.  Back and forth, back and forth, I kept it up for quite a few minutes, in perfect control of the ball.  

I had never been able to repeat it since.  Interesting how anger is capable of making one do things one’s normally unable to…

The hitting the ball high up into the air bit, I was able to repeat without any trouble at all.  A few years later, a friend invited me to play tennis at a tennis court surrounded by plane trees.  When my racket did actually manage to make contact with the oncoming ball, it’d send the ball flying high up into the trees.  At the end of the hour’s session, the plane trees all had a big pile of green leaves at the base…