I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in a part of the city called Bensonhurst. If there is a more Italian place in all of America, I haven’t found it yet. That’s where my grandparents settled when they emigrated from Sicily, back before the Great Depression (As opposed to the minor, but persistent, depressions of the people who lived there before and after.). I moved out of Brooklyn and onto Long Island when I was just two years old and… well… okay. I didn’t move. Others moved me. I was still too young to be doing any heavy lifting. The point is that I was born into a region of a city that resides in a state that belongs to a country that makes its home on this world we all share.
Though I was technically raised on Long Island, in a little suburban town called Hauppauge (that’s a Native American name—we had a lot of them (Commack, Nissequogue, Ronkonkoma (that last one is just fun to say)), my family and I took frequent, almost weekly, trips back into Brooklyn to visit the family we had left behind. These were little cultural excursions, in retrospect. The distance between those two points was perhaps 40 miles on a map. In terms of a cultural difference, it may as well have been a different planet. Hauppauge was a snapshot taken from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It was suburbia. Brooklyn was Brooklyn. It was Goodfellas. No, seriously.
Growing up in and around that place, you quickly discovered that the common greeting was “How ya doin’?”
Got that? How ya doin’?
Not “How are you doing?” or even “How are you?” It’s “How ya doin’?”
The difference here is important, and it’s a regional idiosyncrasy. We’re not really asking, you see. Despite the word choice and the punctuation, this is not a question. It’s simply a greeting. We don’t really care. We don’t want to know. We’re just saying hi. Hello. That’s it.
Congratulations, you’ve just had your first lesson in Brookylnese.
The proper response to this question is, of course, “How ya doin’?” This is most commonly coupled with a short, sharp jerk of the chin in the direction of the person to whom you are speaking. What I couldn’t understand, when I first moved to Florida, was why people were answering me when I greeted them.
“How ya doin’?” I’d say.
“I’m all right,” they’d reply.
Which, where I come from, is kind of rude. Isn’t that odd? But it’s true. So I’m sitting there thinking, You selfish bastard. All about you, is it? What about me? Huh? Where’s my greeting?!
I think about this kind of thing when I’m learning through ChinesePod. You ask someone in Chinese how they’re doing and someday they might just say, “Horses and tigers, man.”
Huh?
Just so-so.
马马虎虎
mǎ mǎ hū hū
Literal translation: horse horse, tiger tiger
What?! Come again? I’d love to know the idiomatic origin of that little gem! How about this one…
Thing/person
东西
dōng xi
Literal translation: east west
Which kind of makes its own weird kind of sense, because if you’re talking about some nonspecific object or person, then it could exist anywhere between east and west. I get that. And don’t get me wrong. I like little idiosyncratic noodles like this. Like how “pissed” in Brooklyn means to be really angry at someone, but in Great Britain it means to get drunk. Or how my Australian friend uses the phrase “off with the fairies,” or “put a sticky beak in.” Neither of those is a literal translation of what she means.
Now, obviously, I’m still new to Chinese. These are just two examples of the language’s idiosyncrasies. Can anyone point me to a few more? Because, oddly enough, it’s stuff like that that I find easiest to remember.
It’s a very nice Sunday afternoon here in Florida. How ya doin’?
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haha, you make me die laughing, picturing that sulky little boy cursing those “selfish bastards” in his head !! haahaahaa
Ok, here’s my little contribution:
晒太阳
front-to-back and word-for-word converted: dry/air the sun
real meaning: bask in the sunshine
Oh Chinese is chocked full of nice little idiosyncrasies.
I especially get a kick out of the ones that have to do with animals:
炒鱿鱼 (chao3you2yu2) - (Lit: To fry a squid. Meaning: To fire somebody (from a job))
放鸽子 (fang4ge1zi) - (Lit: To release a pigeon. Meaning: To stand somebody up)
拍马屁 (pai4ma3pi4) - (Lit: To swat a horse’s butt. Meaning: To suck up or flatter someone.)
Great phrases.
Your blog is great!
It’s hard to “find” or “think of” idiosyncratic phrases. They just pop up without your even noticing them.
Anyway, after racking my brain, I’ve got one.
狐狸精：fox fairy
derogatory, referred to those that swipe one’s husband or boyfriend or partner. It can also refer to those immorally low women.
Yet I sincerely doubt its validity. Who can disentangle the complications in a threesome relationship? And by which standard are we to judge others?
Well - I too am a Long Island, NY boy. From Mazza Pizza (Massapequa). Now living i Shanghai and just starting to learn Chinese.
haha, I would say I love those foxes. They are so cunning. Clever and knowledgeable. I love those tales.
in both Pimsleur and Cpod i have learned both “left right” (litteral) for “more or less) (zuǒ yòu or 左右) and “rotton cakes” (zao1 gao1) for expressing that something is bad (modifier and exlaimation?)
Exactly!
Those fox fairies in 蒲松龄’s 聊斋志异are most fascinating! I love them! Yet please remember, in his stories, these girls are generally loyal to their lovers.
东西
east west
meaning:thing,item,object
the origin of this compounded words is somewhat complicated.because it involved geomancy. (chinese astrology).
the main idea is that north,south,east,west, together with center are direction used on earth,and each is represented by it’s element.
east = wood south = fire
west = metal north = water & center = soil
since,we no longer use center as directional guild,while fire and water can not be carried by hand.
the scholars then (in ancient time) would say;
ni dai sam mo dong si
you carry (in your hands) what (wood or metal)
thus 东西
马马虎虎
Once upon a time, there was a careless painter. One day, while he was painting a horse, he got an invitation to paint a tiger for a local rich man. He had finished the head of horse and then he went on with the same picture the body of tiger.
When he came back, the elder son asked him what it was. He replied, it was a tiger. When the younger one asked him, he told him it was a horse.
One day, the elder son saw a horse in the street. “Oh, there is a dangerous tiger!” He went to the animal,fought with it and beat it to death. Another day, the younger son saw a tiger in the forest. “What a pretty horse!” He told himself. He tried to ride the animal,however, he was eaten soon.
When he saw the left of his son and the dead horse, the painter couldn’t help crying. He lost one of his son and had to pay a lot for the dead horse.
From then on, 马虎mahu has been used to describe a careless or non-serious person. And later, 马马虎虎 got the meaning of so-so because the picture the painter drew was just a so-so one.