On a horse...

Undoubtedly, one of my favorite Chinese terms is "马上," (mǎshàng) which means immediately or right away. Now the reason why I like this phrase isn't because I'm an impatient person (although I am), it's because when you directly translate the characters 马 (mǎ) and 上 (shàng)  it means "horse" and "on," respectively.  Meaning, whenever someone tells you something (or someone）is immediately coming (马上来 mǎshàng lái），that speaker is literally saying the thing/person is coming on a horse, i.e. it's coming as quickly as it can. Since for a long time historically horses were the fastest mode of transportation, it makes sense that saying something is coming on a horse would logically mean it's coming right away and as fast as it/he/she can.

 The term 马上 (mǎshàng) is hardly the only term in Chinese that have an occasionally humerous, yet logical literal translations that somehow relate to a larger or different term. In fact, most terms in Chinese make some sort of sense when broken down character by character partially in order to make terms more easy to remember (aside from terms that are phonetic translations of foreign things or places). Here are a few additional examples:

1. 马上(mǎshàng)

• Character-by-character translation: On a horse
• Actual translation: Immediately, right away

2. 出租车 (chūzū chē)

• Character-by-character translation: Rent-out car
• Actual translation: Taxi

3. 火腿 (huǒtuǐ)

• Character-by-character translation: Fire leg
• Actual translation: Ham

4. 牛仔裤 (niúzǎikù)

• Character-by-character translation: Cowboy pants
• Actual translation: Jeans

Anyways, that's your Chinese linguistics lesson for today.  Have a good weekend.

Victory of the day:

being able to hold conversations completely in Mandarin with two train ticket agents, and two front desk people  in Mandarin without any of them giving me "What-is-this-crazy-girl-saying-to-me" looks.

And on top of that, today I also called a travel agent to ask her if she could help me book my winter break travels. We actually spoke on the phone for a good two minutes at least and we were able to communicate pretty well. Considering the fact that face-to-face communication in itself can sometimes be tricky with my terrible Mandarin, this phone conversation is pretty impressive. Not to mention the fact that I hate telephones & calling people in general, even if the person I'm calling speaks English.

Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of myself right now.

Now for a completely unrelated photograph from the Wangfujing Night Market:

Old Gold Mountain

Do you know what they call San Francisco in Mandarin Chinese? 旧金山(Jiù jīn shān).

Literally translated, it means "Old Gold Mountain". I'm serious. It hails back to the California Gold Rush of 1849, when many Chinese people sailed to California in hopes of striking it rich.

I had no idea that people still referred to San Francisco as "Old Gold Mountain" until I came to China. But they still do, go figure.

If you wondering why this is the first time I've heard the term 旧金山 , it's because in (Hong Kong) Cantonese we call San Francisco 三藩市 (Sān fán shì), which is  a phonetic translation of the city name, San Francisco. If you hear the word for San Francisco in Hong Kong Cantonese, it's obvious that the term was phonetically derived from the city name itself. Literally translated, the characters have no relation to each other at all. 

 

P.S. Yes, these are my own pictures.