Slang | Chapter 14 | Chinese Sketches | Herbert Allen Giles

Although native scholars in China have not deemed it worthwhile to compile a work such as the slang dictionary, it is no less a fact that slang occupies quite as important a position in Chinese as in any language of the West. These have their argot, as with us, intelligible only to each other, and phrases constantly occur, even in refined conversation, the origin of which can be traced infallibly to the kennel. Why so much paint is the equivalent of what a swell you are, and especially expressive in China, where, beneath a flowered blue silk robe, there often peeps out a pair of salmon-colored inexpressibles of the same costly material. They have put down their barrows, means that certain men have struck work, and is peculiarly comprehensible in a country where so much transport is affected in this laborious way. Barrows are common all over the empire, both for the conveyance of goods and passengers, and where long distances have to be traversed, donkeys are frequently harnessed in front. The traditional sail is also occasionally used. We ourselves have seen barrows running before the wind between Tiansin and Taku, of course with a man pushing behind. The children have official business, is understood to mean they are laid up with the smallpox, the metaphor implying that their turn has come, just as a turn of official duty comes round to every Manchu in Peking, and in the same inevitable way. Vaccination is now gradually dispelling this erroneous notion, but the phrase we have given is not likely to disappear. A magistrate who has skinned the place clean, has extorted every possible cash from the district committed to his charge, a father and mother of the people, as his grasping honor is called. That horse has a mane, says the Chinese housebreaker, speaking of a wall well studded at the top with pieces of broken glass or sharp iron spikes. You'll have to sprinkle so much water, urges the friend who advises you to keep clear of law, likening official greed to dust, which requires a liberal outlay of water in the shape of bank notes to make it lie. A flowery bill is understood from one end of China to the other as that particular kind in which our native servants delight to indulge, namely, an account charging twice as much for everything as was really paid, and containing twice as much in quantity as was actually supplied. A flowery suit is a case in which women play a prominent part. You scorched me yesterday is a quiet way of remarking that an appointment was broken, and implying that the rays of the sun were unpleasantly hot. Don't pick out the sugar is a very necessary injunction to a servant sent to the market to buy food, etc., the metaphor being taken from a kind of Another phrase is, don't ride the donkey, which may be explained by the proverbial dislike of Chinamen for walking exercise, and the temptation to hire a donkey and squeeze the fare out of the money given them for other purposes. That house is not cleaned inside signifies that devils and bogies, as dreaded by the Chinese, have taken up their residence therein. In fact, the house is He is all rice water, i.e., gives one plenty of the water in which rice has been boiled, but none of the rice itself, is said of a man who promises much and does nothing. One load between the two is very commonly said of two men who have married two sisters. In China, a coolie's load consists of two baskets or bundles slung with ropes to the end of a flat bamboo pole about five feet in length, and thus carried across the shoulder. Hence the expression. Apropos of marriage, the guitar string is broken, is an elegant paraphrasis, by which it is understood that a man's wife is dead, the verb to die being rarely used in conversation, and never of a relative or friend. He will not put a new string to his guitar is, of course, a continuation of the same idea, more coarsely expressed as, putting on a new coat. His father has been gathered to the West, a phrase evidently of Buddhist import, is no more, has gone for a stroll, has bid adieu to the world, may all be employed to supply the place of the tabooed verb, which is chiefly used of animals and plants. After a few days' illness, he kicked, is a vulgar way of putting it, and analogous to the English slang idiom. The emperor becomes a guest on high, riding up to heaven, on the dragon's back, with flowers of rhetoric, ad nauseum. Buddhist priests revolve into emptiness, i.e., are annihilated. The soul of the Taoist priest wings its flight away. Only a candle end left, is said of an affair which nears completion. Red and white matters are marriages and deaths, so called from the color of the cloths worn on these important occasions. A blushing person fires up, or literally, ups fire, according to the Chinese idiom. To be fond of blowing resembles our modern term, gassing. A lose-money goods is a daughter, as compared with a son who can go out in the world and earn money, whereas a daughter must be provided with a dowry before anyone will marry her. A more genuine metaphor is a thousand ounces of silver. It expresses the real affection Chinese parents have for their daughters as well as their sons. To let the dog out is the same as our letting the cat out, to run against a nail, is allied to kicking against the pricks. A man of superficial knowledge is called half a bottle of vinegar, though why vinegar in preference to anything else, we have not been able to discover. He has got his gun in his hand, is a reproach launched at the head of some confirmed opium debauchee, one of those few reckless smokers to whom opium is indeed a curse. They have burnt paper together, makes it clear to a Chinese mind, that the person spoken of have gone through the marriage service, part of which ceremony consists in burning silver paper, made up to resemble lumps of pure metal. We have split, is one of those happy idioms which loses nothing in translation, being word for word the same in both languages and with exactly the same meaning. A crooked stick is a man whose eccentricities keep people from associating freely with him, he won't lie conveniently in a bundle with the other sticks. We will bring this short sketch to a close with one more example, valuable because it is old, because the date at which it came into existence can be fixed with unerring certainty, and because it is commonly used in all parts of China, though hardly one educated man in ten would be able to tell the reason why. A jealous woman is said to drink vinegar, and the origin of the term is as follows. Feng Shuang Ling was the favorite minister of the emperor Tai Song, one of the Tang dynasty. He lived A.D. 578-648. One day his master gave him a maid of honor from the palace as second wife, but the first or real wife made the palace too hot for the poor girl to live in. Feng complained to the emperor, who gave him a bowl of poison, telling him to offer his troublesome wife the choice between death and a peaceable behavior for the future. The lady instantly chose the former and drank up the bowl of vinegar, which the emperor had substituted to try her constancy. Subsequently, on his majesty's recommendation, Feng sent the young lady back to resume her duties as taro woman to the empress, but the phrase lived and has survived to this day.