The Jing

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-23 10:43

Nage, nage

Chinese don't utter "um", when they are lost for words they say "nage". "Nage" means "that" and is pronounced nay-gur. If you have just arrived in China, start saying nage now. You can sound like a local with only knowing a few words. If you know only 100 Chinese words, by strategically inserting nage you can double your vocabulary. It will especially impresses visiting friends. You can tell a taxi driver the place you want to go and fill the sentence with nage, and your friends will say: "Wow, how about that! You can really speak Chinese." Pick one sentence you know and see how far you can stretch it. For example "I can speak Chinese a little, but I don't speak well". By inserting nage it becomes twice as long. "Nage, nage, wo hui shuo .. nage, nage ... (Um, um, I can speak, um, um) nage, nage ... yidian ... (um, um, a little) nage ... putonghua ... nage (um Chinese um). Your friends will think you're the real deal, unlike the taxi driver who rolls his eyes and sees right through your scam.

Eat your wedding candy?

If your co-worker comes to the office and is giving away sweets to everybody, there is good reason. She is sharing her wedding candy with everybody. In fact "shenme shihou keyi chi ni de xitang? (when are we going to eat your wedding candy?)" is the polite Chinese way of saying: "Why the heck are you still single and why aren't you married?"

Last-minute plans

Beijingers are very spontaneous and have the habit of shooting out dinner invitations at the very last minute. The phone will ring late Saturday afternoon and a restaurant will be announced. Normally, to the sheer horror of many newcomers, a boisterous session at the local KTV tends to follow. Up until the beginning of the last century, a dinner invitation in China was very different. A courier would be sent to a dinner guest's home delivering a very large red envelope containing a very large red card. The color red was a symbol of festivity and celebration so the recipient knew something was cooking at Mr Wang's courtyard home. The invite would state that on noon on the eighth of next month "the floors would be swept, the wine cups washed and the host will be ready, awaiting their arrival". A second invite would arrive maybe a week later and a third on the morning of the big day. The third invitation would demand punctuality to the minute. But, guests paid no attention to the stated time and would organize their hand-carried sedan for a 4 pm arrival.

What a joke

A reader shared this Chinese joke with The Jing and we are now sharing it with you.

A guy goes into a late-night tavern and notices one fellow sitting alone and talking aloud to himself. This bleary-eyed bloke is laughing one moment and then looking angry the next. He asks the gibberer about his odd behavior and the drunk says: "I'm telling myself jokes ... when I hear a new one I laugh, but if I've heard it before it really makes me angry."

Classic tale of a bad monk

One of the Jing's favorite classic Chinese books is Outlaws of the Marsh, which tells the story of warts-and-all heroes who fight for the people's rights against the corrupted Song Dynasty. The characters are a riot! There is Yang Zhi the Blue-faced Beast, Ruan Xiaowu the Reckless Rash, and Xuan Zan the Ugly Son-In-Law. Wu the Elder is called "Three Inches of Mulberry Bark", because he's short and ugly, and there's a guy called "Dried Pecker Head" who is certainly no Brad Pitt look-alike. But one of the funniest fellows is Lu Da, or Sagacious Lu the tattooed monk. Lu was an army major who beat a local butcher to death because the butcher was taking advantage of a family and was holding their daughter captive. Lu escapes and disguises himself as a monk and hides out in a monastery. He's probably the worst holy man ever. Returning to the monastery from his drunken dog meat-eating binge, he joins his fellow monks in their meditation room and vomits noisily all over the floor. The stench is frightful. As he collects himself and adjusts his robes, a roasted dogleg falls to the ground. The monks try to flee the drunken wild man but he grabs one by the ear and crams the meat into his mouth. It's outrageous.

The people's panda

Adorable pandas dressed in Mao suits (above) have gone on sale at Panda Town, to commemorate the 60th National Day.

Panda dolls and costumes have been a hit among young Beijingers since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They come dressed in skimpy bikinis, as well as nun habits and even Harry Potter costumes.