Fri, January 15, 2010
Getting a grip on Chinese slang was never so much fun. Eveline Chao's new book "Niubi: The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught In School" takes readers through a list of colorful language that would make Granny Wang blush. CW sat down with Chao to learn more about talking dirty in Mandarin.
How did you get into recording Chinese slang in English?
I bet a lot of expats in China can probably remember the first time they learned that niúbī was slang for "f*in awesome" but literally meant "cow pussy." I know for me, it was pretty much the most awesome thing I'd ever heard in my life. From that moment onwards I knew I was in love with Chinese slang and had to learn more.
How long did the book take you to complete?
My agent sold the book in January 2008, the manuscript was due January 2009, and it came out in November 2009, so it was about two years from signing the contract to holding a finished book in my hands, which is the average time frame for most books. But I'd been carrying a notebook around with me everywhere I went jotting down interesting words and pestering my Chinese friends to explain them to me ever since I arrived in Beijing, in 2006, so in a way I spent nearly four years on it.
Did you have any qualms over publishing any of the entries? Anything too crass or dirty that you left out?
I made a conscious decision early on not to include any racial slurs, even though a lot of them actually had really interesting backstories, because I don't want to propagate that sort of thing, but aside from that I was all for making it as dirty as possible. I do have a massive pile of cuts sitting in a TextEdit doc somewhere but they were omitted more because they were too regional, or too specific to a very particular situation, to be widely useful. For example, I cut a curse that's only used in Tianjin, and also unearthed but rejected a list of terms for a set of very specialized and bizarre sexual services offered at a brothel in Guangdong.
Using slang in another language can be a difficult thing, especially when using it to tell someone off. Accents, small mistakes, knowing when and where to use it etc., can often lessen the intended effect. Any advice for Chinese-language learners when it comes to using Mandarin slang?
I'd advise non-native speakers to use dirty words and curses words very, very sparingly, and only when they're 100% sure about the correct usage. And even then you really should err on the side of not using it. Anyone who's ever heard a Frenchman say "You stupeed beach" in English knows it's really hard to curse in another language without sounding ridiculous. There's also a sense when you're using a second language that the word isn't "real" somehow, and so you wind up using it more flippantly than you should. Sort of like when you haven't gotten used to Chinese money yet and spend really recklessly because it feels like Monopoly money.
Another thing that should be obvious but is worth being reminded of is that there are huge differences between, say, a punk rocker from Beijing and a middle-aged woman from the countryside. Over the course of my research, young Chinese hipster types would tell me that it was perfectly normal and fine to use very dirty insults in an affectionate, casual way, and to drop the Chinese equivalent of the f-bomb every other word, but then I'd hear from another friend that she had jokingly called her Chinese friend shǎguā, which translates to "silly melon" and means something like "dummy," in front of his mom, and she was really shocked and horrified. But then if you go back to the hip-hopper or the punk rocker or the hipster type, they'll insist that shǎguā is so outdated and mild that it's not offensive at all anymore. Every person has a different idea of what's vulgar or offensive.
Also women should keep in mind that in China, it's much more shocking for a woman to be heard using strong language than in many of our home countries. It's not quite as noticeable in a big city (read: den of sin) like Beijing or Shanghai, but for the most part "good" Chinese girls don't drink, smoke, or swear.
What's your favorite phrase in the book? Why?
I'm most fascinated by words that describe concepts or situations that don't have a name in English. For example, there's an insult for a man who's shorter than his wife or girlfriend (半残废 bàn cánfèi - literally "half cripple"), and a word for when a woman moans specifically in the context of sex (叫床 jiàochuáng, literally "call out bed"). And then, these are just straight-up commonly known words and not really slang per se, but I also find it interesting that there's a word for a romantic relationship between a teacher and a student (师生恋 shī shēng liàn, or "teacher-student love"), which reveals how common such relationships are, and also a word for the secret stash of money that a woman sets aside in case her husband leaves her, or that a man puts aside for himself because he's expected to hand all his money over to his wife (私房钱 sī fáng qián - literally "private house money.")
Any new books on the roster we can look forward to?
I'm going to defer to my superstitious, Chinese-influenced side and say no.
