![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Happy Chinese New Year! Yeah, I'm a day late. Tonight's moon was a beautiful Islamic crescent, with a little red tinting at the end of dusk.
Language is fun. On a few blogs yesterday I spotted Gong Hey Fat Choy. I was mentally scratching my head when my Chinese coworker got in. She put out some candy, embarrassedly mumbled something about the new year, and dove for cubicle cover. The cheer jumped into my head and not really recalling what it mean I hollered "Gong xi, gong xi!" over the wall. The response was a "oh, OH, yes, yes, thank you, Thank You!"
Gong Xi Fa Cai is Mandarin, which I dimly recalled. Gong Hey Fat Choy is Cantonese, of which I know nothing. All Mandarin speakers I've run into advise against Cantonese for sanity sake.
The Taiwanese woman who taught me gong xi didn't even know what it meant, "it's just something we say." You actually get that a lot from native Chinese speakers. I'm not sure if they don't know how to get it to English for me or if something else is going on.
Gong Xi means something like congrats or joy to you. The Fa cai is wishing you wealth. It's also real tricky to say correctly, the cai is a particularly funky monosyllable. Gong Xi, on the other hand, is dead easy for an English speaker, which is why I remembered it.
A lot of folks at work dropped by to wish the poor Chinese lady in the next cube some form of happy new year in various forms of mangled Chinese. I only know a handful of Mandarin phrases, but I know how they should sound.
I resolved to try to give her a proper Mandarin well wishing on the way out. I looked it up, found an audio and listened a few times. I mumbled a few times, trying to pitch a couple of the tones right. I couldn't really speak it or I'd ruin the surprise.
I was with someone else when people started clearing out and I nearly missed her. As everyone was saying their good evening, I caught her eye and belted out my best Mandarin. "Xin Nian Kuai Le!" Literally "Happy New Year." It's got few challenging bits and that "le" took particular care.
There was a confused pause and she leaned forward with a "what you talkin' bout white boy" look. I was sure I'd botched it. Then, as my heart sank and I prepared to give a second, doubtless, futile attempt, her look of confusion turned to shocked surprise.
She rocked back and looked flustered. "Good, good! Very good! Happy new year!" This was punctuated with a huge smile and, of all things, a thumbs up. The reaction convinced me I'd nailed it. There was happy confusion, and a kind of a, "did he really say that" look.
Of course, I forgot the phrase on the drive home. Mandarin is one of those many things I've tried and will never really master. Still, for a single perfect instant, it worked.
Language is fun. On a few blogs yesterday I spotted Gong Hey Fat Choy. I was mentally scratching my head when my Chinese coworker got in. She put out some candy, embarrassedly mumbled something about the new year, and dove for cubicle cover. The cheer jumped into my head and not really recalling what it mean I hollered "Gong xi, gong xi!" over the wall. The response was a "oh, OH, yes, yes, thank you, Thank You!"
Gong Xi Fa Cai is Mandarin, which I dimly recalled. Gong Hey Fat Choy is Cantonese, of which I know nothing. All Mandarin speakers I've run into advise against Cantonese for sanity sake.
The Taiwanese woman who taught me gong xi didn't even know what it meant, "it's just something we say." You actually get that a lot from native Chinese speakers. I'm not sure if they don't know how to get it to English for me or if something else is going on.
Gong Xi means something like congrats or joy to you. The Fa cai is wishing you wealth. It's also real tricky to say correctly, the cai is a particularly funky monosyllable. Gong Xi, on the other hand, is dead easy for an English speaker, which is why I remembered it.
A lot of folks at work dropped by to wish the poor Chinese lady in the next cube some form of happy new year in various forms of mangled Chinese. I only know a handful of Mandarin phrases, but I know how they should sound.
I resolved to try to give her a proper Mandarin well wishing on the way out. I looked it up, found an audio and listened a few times. I mumbled a few times, trying to pitch a couple of the tones right. I couldn't really speak it or I'd ruin the surprise.
I was with someone else when people started clearing out and I nearly missed her. As everyone was saying their good evening, I caught her eye and belted out my best Mandarin. "Xin Nian Kuai Le!" Literally "Happy New Year." It's got few challenging bits and that "le" took particular care.
There was a confused pause and she leaned forward with a "what you talkin' bout white boy" look. I was sure I'd botched it. Then, as my heart sank and I prepared to give a second, doubtless, futile attempt, her look of confusion turned to shocked surprise.
She rocked back and looked flustered. "Good, good! Very good! Happy new year!" This was punctuated with a huge smile and, of all things, a thumbs up. The reaction convinced me I'd nailed it. There was happy confusion, and a kind of a, "did he really say that" look.
Of course, I forgot the phrase on the drive home. Mandarin is one of those many things I've tried and will never really master. Still, for a single perfect instant, it worked.