Articles About the Chinese Language

Playboy runs wild in China

I thought it was a bit strange when a conservative Chinese woman walked by wearing a playboy shirt. But then I thought, hey: it aint no weirder than the lady I saw outside the subway with a shirt that said "certified sex expert". Hmmm. I'm not sure she quite knew what that meant. But that's no worse than the Americans I see around with Chinese tatoos that make no sense. But I digress.

I bought this sweet Playboy belt buckle in China:

I figured hey - if "normal" Chinese people can wear it, so can I.

Then I bought this backpack:

Man were my friends jealous.

it turns out playboy is a different brand in China. It's pronounced hua1 hua1 gong1 zi0; 花 花 公 子. And it has absolutely nothing to do with our beloved Playboy in the US.

Beijing Mom Teaches Two White Boys How to Cook Chinese Dumplings: 作 水 餃 Instructional Video

I shot this video in 2003 in Beijing during a period of intensive dumpling-making lessons taught by my friend's mom. We'd make 200 dumplings twice a week.

 

Chinese Phone Cards - "Please Enter Your Password"

This is one of the phone cards I bought in China. It's pretty, for a phone card:

When you want to use the Chinese phone card you dial the number and the voice says 请输入密码.

The sentence is 请 [qing3 = "please"] 输入 [shu4ru4 = "input"] 密 [mi4 = "secret"] 码 [ma3 = "code"].

Please enter secret code! So then you enter it and call.

 

How to say ecstasy (the drug!!) in Chinese: 摇头丸

In Mandarin, the drug ecstasy is called 摇 [yao2=shake] 头 [tou2=head] 丸 [wan2=pill].

It's because of the popularized, stereotypical situation in which people take ecstasy and then dance crazy to techno music. At least a couple people China definitely think that if you take 摇头丸 you will begin spontaneously shaking your head and won't be able to stop!!

The scariest possible words to hear from a Beijing cop: 把 你 的 护 照 给 我。

China isn't generally a scary place.

But as a foreigner, it's mildly terrifying when a cop says 把 [ba1="with respect to"] 你 的 [ni3de0 = your] 护 照 [hu4zhao4="passport"] 给 [gei3="give"] 我 [wo3="me"].

It's especially upsetting if the line is delivered by a cop who is staring stonily at you becasue you tried to help your friend jump up on one of the podiums normally occupied by guards outside the Spanish embassy! 

Beijing cribs - anatomy of a Chinese address, or how to write an address in Mandarin

In America, you might live at

123 any street, apt. 2

city, STATE, zip.

That's nice.

But in China your address would look a little different.

Here's the address where I lived in Beijing in the early 2000s:

北 京 市 朝 阳 区 朝 阳 公 园 西 小 区
1 号 楼 四 单 元 602 号
骆 晨 南 收

The first two characters, obviously, are Bei3jing1. Then you have shi4, which means city. So, city of Beijing. So far, so good.

Next, you have the district, which is chao2 yang2 district. The word for district is qu1 (区). So 朝 阳 区 means chao2yang2 district.

The next 7 characters start to get a little crazy. The characters are chao2 yang2 (朝 阳) gong1 yuan2 (公 园 = park) xi1 xiao3 men2 (西 小 区 = western little district).

Ok, so in total the first line of my address was:

Beijing city, chao yang district, chao yang park west little district.

The second line has 3 parts. First, the building number. 1 号 楼 is pronounced yi1 hao4 lou2. Lou2 means building. Hao4 basically means "number".

Next, you get the  单 元 (dan1 yuan2), which means doorway. I lived in the 4th doorway. I never really figured out what that meant.

Finally, the second line ends with the apartment number, which was 602, followed once again by hao4 (="number").

The 3rd line was just my name in Chinese, 骆 晨 南, followed by 收, pronounced xing4, which means last name.

I usually found my way home, and I sometimes got mail, but not often. 

that is so, so cow vagina! no really, 真牛屄。

This is yet another example of a slang phrase that makes no sense. 牛 [niu2] means cow, and 屄 [bi1] means vagina. That's right. 牛屄 means cow vagina.

But in China, at least in Beijing, it means 'da shit' or 'awesome' or 'really cool' or 'hardcore' or similar.

It's sort of like saying 'that's the shit' in English.  As in, that [insert noun] is 真牛屄!!

Don't pull the wool over the eyes of foreigners.

There's a Chinese word 蒙 [meng1] that means "cheat", "deceive", or "pull the wool over the eyes of".

A good phrase to know if you have a sense of humor and are going to be negotiating with any Chinese people is:

别蒙老外!

The first word is pronounced bie2 and it means "don't". Second word  is meng1. Third word is lao3, which means old, and the forth word is wai4, which means outside or foreign. The last two words together mean "foreigner".

So in sum total, the phrase bie2 meng1 lao3wai4 means "do not pull the wool over the eyes of foreigners."

If you get the tone right you'll definitely get a laugh.

Make sure you don't get menged by telling Chinese people bie2 meng1 lao3wai4!!!

CHALLENGE: Mandarin spoken by an unsuspecting Beijing local... Part 2: The Answer

This sentence was part of a phone conversation. it's a little hard to translate things out of context, but with some help, here's the sentence.

In English, is means "All day he's had nothing but free time. Quickly beep him for me."

The pinyin is: Ta1 zhe4 yi4 tian1 jing4 xian2 zhe0 mei2 shi4r. Ni3 gan2 jin3 gei3 wo3 hu1 ba.

The characters are: 他这一天净闲着没事儿。你赶紧给我呼吧。

Note that xian2 means "free" as in "free time".

Next challenge coming soon...

CHALLENGE: Mandarin spoken by an unsuspecting Beijing local... can you translate this sentence??

If you can translate this leave a comment. If you get it right, you have my admiration and you are a super hardcore Mandarin speaker. I'll post the translation in a week or so: