my 6 month old jack russell terrier - harley - has gone missing. he is white with chocolate brown marks. he weighs about 10 pounds. his collar was off but he is microchipped. he was last seen about 9am on saturday, october 1 on linvilla orchard in media, pa. then he was gone.

You are using a browser that does not support web standards, so this site isn't going to look right until you upgrade.
strange currency

Links

Yellow On The Outside

i learned something new and interesting today, while i was very busy and really should have been working:

Did you know that where in English we say "so so" and French they say "Comme ci, comme ça", in Chinese they say "ma ma hu hu" or literally translated, "horse horse tiger tiger"?

via end.co.nz

that's quite cool. i don't speak chinese, though, and it sounds very difficult so i don't think i will start anytime soon. i wonder what the origin of that expression is?

at lunch someone i work with who is chinese said that the old people in his family call him "jook sing" which translates into "hollow bamboo" but also has something to do with bananas, and which means something like a chinese person who doesn't know anything about being chinese. because he is american. it sounded like a mean thing but then he said that it was a strong community that he identifies with so i guess it isn't.

that is my chinese language and culture lesson for the day.

Monday 18-Aug-03

well I guess I will have to have a chat to my 5"0 tall mother of Chinese descent and find out some asian history for you! will get back to you soon. "Gung He Fa Choi" that is the only saying I know and it only means Happy Chinese New Year! not that versatile.

posted by: Blair on Monday 18-Aug-03

i think that makes you hollow bamboo.

posted by: ash on Monday 18-Aug-03

As I speak a little chinese, my friends from time to time call me an "egg". Thats white on the outside yellow on the inside...

posted by: nick on Tuesday 19-Aug-03

Actually, ma ma hu hu (de) means confused or mixed up, as in the inability to distinguish between a horse or a tiger. And Blair, 'Gung He Fa Choi' means that your 5'0" mother of Chinese descent speaks Cantonese, versus Mandarin. A couple of my favorites - shitou diao jing (the rock falls in the well) = to not understand (bu dong) er bai wu (the number 250) = stupid (as in, can't count past...)

posted by: Wind Rider on Wednesday 20-Aug-03

well.. I grew up in mainland china and i am sure that mamahuhu means 'so so' not confused. maybe there there are some people who think that it means confused in some way becuase of the story behind it, but it is commonly used in china to mean 'so so'.

posted by: cao huai yun on Thursday 21-Aug-03

Thanks Huai Yun, I only learned it in a classroom environment - never got a real opportunity to practice zhongguo hua in a native speaking environment. And it was many, many years ago that I was using it regularly... Glad you cleared that up and corrected my mistake...apologies for creating any confusion, folks...

posted by: Wind Rider on Saturday 23-Aug-03

"ma ma hu hu" does not mean "so so", close, but not exactly "so so" means neither very good nor very bad, meaning "the usual", and can be used to describe a variety of things but "ma ma hu hu" actually denotes substandard quality or effort calling someone "ma ma hu hu" means he's lazy and doesn't care much about what he's doing calling something "ma ma hu hu" means the workmanship sucks and the thing works only half the time "ma ma hu hu" is actually an idiom meaning "close enough is good enough" from extrapolation, it probably came from a story of one of the emperor's hunting trips, they setted out to hunt some tigers, but can't find any, so they pretended that some horses were tigers and so on, it was close enough, so whatever... there is a reason the meaning of "ma ma hu hu" is getting closer and closer to "so so" (the usual), under communism, Everything from doorknobs to hot water is "ma ma hu hu" (subpar) and it's become the new standard

posted by: Shane on Saturday 06-Sep-03

Post a comment
Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember info?



Archives
October 2005
August 2005
July 2005
January 2005
September 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000


strange currency is Ashley Frazier's weblog.