Posted by Jonah Lopin on Sun, Mar 29, 2009 @ 10:23 AM
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!
Posted by Jonah Lopin on Sun, Mar 22, 2009 @ 09:51 PM
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.
Posted by Jonah Lopin on Sun, Mar 08, 2009 @ 10:14 PM
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!!
Posted by Jonah Lopin on Sun, Mar 01, 2009 @ 12:37 PM
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!!!