On Being Romantical

In an effort to maintain some level of connection with the very little bit of Mandarin I learned in China, I signed up at nciku.com and I like to do a daily (though usually, only a couple times a week) exercise in learning how to write a new character or phrase. Sometimes it's topical, like today I learned that 情人节 (qing ren jie) is Valentine's Day (or Feelings People Day), other times I pick random words, like 斗牛犬(dou niu quan), which is bulldog (or fight cow dog). Throw on the yingguo and you have yourself a British fight cow dog (my favorite!).

Since today is Valentine's day, their Conversation of the Day was a true lesson in being romantic.


Wife: Jīntiān qíngrénjié nǐ zěnme dōu bú sòng wǒ huār a?

今天情人节你怎么都不送我花儿啊？

It's Valentine's Day today. Why don't you give me flowers?


Husband: Nà dōngxi nàme guì, hái méi shénme yòng.

那东西那么贵，还没什么用。

They are so expensive and useless.


Wife: Kě nǐ qùnián jiù sòngwǒ le a.

可你去年就送我了啊。

But you gave me flowers last year.


Husband: Qùnián nǐ hái zhǐshì wǒ nǚpéngyǒu, xiànzài dōu shì wǒ lǎopó le, hái sònghuā tǎonǐ huānxīn a.

去年你还只是我女朋友，现在都是我老婆了，还送花讨你欢心啊！

You were my girlfriend last year. But you are already my wife now. There's no need to give you flowers to please you.



Obviously these hamsters are not yet married. That lady hamster better not get her hopes up.

Ni hao bitches

A year ago, I had just landed in Beijing, settled somewhat in my little room with the broken bed, and began my 3 days of sitting in the apartment trying to adjust to the time change and waiting for the inevitable cold that besets all foreigners entering China due to the onslaught of pollution. I never did get sick so perhaps not forcing myself to do anything those first few days (besides marathon Firefly and Freaks & Geeks) helped.

I had written out a whole sappy "I MISS CHINA!!!" whiny post but this is a happy blog about magical and cramazing things so instead, I'll just post some pictures I love.


This is the new CCTV building (China Central Television). It is directly across the street from the office building I worked in so I got to see it everyday. It does look like a big pair of pants but it is unlike any other building I've ever seen.

Meat on a stick at all hours

Few things are more satiating than leaving a bar at 3:00am with the munchies and being able to get meat (or tofu or bread) on a stick for about 10 cents.

There's a huge repository of great chinglish phrases that people have encountered and can be found all over the internets. I saw quite a few but this was definitely my favorite.

Constantly people! Not just a glass with your dinner or for special occasions.

And finally, one of the best Christmas presents I've ever received from my wonderful friend seen here.

I wore this Doraemon face mask probably every day for at least 2 months, not because it helps to keep pollution out of your lungs, but it helps keep your face warm when it's below freezing and you've got a 40-minute walk to work. Also Chinese people call the little robot cat "Xiao Ding Dang" which always made me giggle. Little ding dong!

It's been snowing all day here in Portland. I'm not a fan but I think I will brave the weather and go to TJ's. I hope I don't freeze to death.

"We said Meh. M-E-H. Meh."

I am a huge fan of new words, shortened words, throwing -tastic at the end of anything to make an adjective, misusing suffixes and prefixes, and even occasionally mixing 2 languages for new words (like saying boozeria for the liquor store, or xingqiFriday for the day of the week). We've all heard strategery, lolz, frienemies, blergh, and so on.

So I was happy to read that meh is now official. I use this word all the time to express indifference, or if I'm trying to be polite when I don't like something and instead of saying it's terrible, I can say it's just meh. I never really thought about it not being an actual word or that people wouldn't understand what I was saying. Americans (and generally, English speakers), even if they have never seen The Simpsons, can usually deduce the meaning from the dismissive tone or the shrug of shoulders. One day when I was in Beijing, I was in a taxi with my then-bf, who's from from the mainland. He asked my opinion about something and since I didn't really care for it one way or another, I said meh. Him not being a native English speaker, and definitely not an avid watcher of the Simpsons, just looked at me with a confused face and said "what?" I said, "Meh. m-e-h. meh." (As if quoting the episode would clarify the situation or perhaps make him appreciate my wittiness...) He responded "I don't know that word. What does it mean?" After a few seconds of thought, I said it wasn't actually a word, that it was closer to slang, but that it meant indifferent. If you don't really like something but don't really hate it, it's meh.

It's a funny thing to explain slang to people who are learning your language as a second language. What was even more common was explaining how we use words in different ways than their intended meaning. For example, my roommate and co-worker in Beijing (who's American) and I both like to say 'that's so balls' when something sucks. Explaining that to non-English speakers is tricky. How do you explain that balls can be the equivalent to something being bad when balls are just things that you toss around in various sports (and that when we say something is balls cause it sucks, well we mean a different kind of ball)? Then I ran into the added difficulty that when I said it means "it sucks," many Chinese people had learned that that's a bad word. Fair enough, I mean, when I really think about it, it does make me giggle (I have the sense of humor of an 8 year old boy - omg! that internet quiz did figure me out!). But I've just used these phrases so much that I'm desensitized from their actual meanings. I hadn't had anyone be offended by 'that sucks' since my youngin days in Alabama, and even then I thought it was such a tame phrase. I guess I could've said it sucks like a vacuum cleaner or a black hole, but that doesn't really make sense. I think I ended up explaining that it's just not that bad (I mean, it's no "that's some motherfuckin bullshit" right?) Basically, that whole interchange just taught me that I need to not use slang phrases that involve male genitalia when talking to people who don't use slang.

Luckily meh is totally inoffensive and so easily rolls off the tongue when experiencing something mediocre that it was pretty easy to explain, and now at least one person in China is using meh the way the lord intended it.