Skip to main content

Aiyah

I have Chinese family, which means that I grew up around Chinese customs. I know how to play mahjong, for example. Unfortunately, that didn't quite translate to the language, since I didn't practice it much growing up. I can pick out a few words in Cantonese, usually enough to know when other people are talking to or about me. I can't make out too much more than that, but I'm not completely ignorant of what people are saying around me.

And as with any language that you're trying to learn, the words that tend to come easiest are usually swear words or common refrains that get repeated often. My theory on this is that swear words are almost universally uttered with a harsh tone, so it's easier to pick them out from the rest of the language. The common refrains are precisely that: common. You hear them a lot, and eventually your ear gets used to them, so you can pick them out from conversation. Either way, it's not uncommon for people who don't speak much of any language to know those two things.

In my case, I know a few cuss words in Chinese, but the one that cracks me up is "aiyah." I have no idea how you're supposed to spell it in English, but that's how I always spell it, so that's what I'm going to stick with. Regardless, it's not a swear word, but it denotes something like frustration or "crap, that wasn't supposed to happen." There's actually a halfway decent explanation over at Urban Dictionary, but it's a bit like the English "dammit" or the Spanish "caray." Anyhow, it is one of the words that has managed to sneak its way into my vocabulary just because I've been around it for so long.

In fact, I tend to reflexively say it (I've even dropped it into previous blog posts). I've surprised a few Asian folks that didn't know me very well by uttering this after dropping something, for example. It wasn't that I knew the term or that I used it properly, it was the combination of those things with the fact that it naturally came out without me thinking or hesitating about it. This is a distinctly Asian thing to do, and people who don't know me all that well are surprised when I act like my last name implies I should.

Anyhow, I use the term in everyday life. Remember, I don't really speak Chinese all that well. However, according to the Mild Ex, that is one of the few things that I can say with perfect intonation and pronunciation. Everything else I say has an American accent to it, and it's obvious that I'm not a native speaker. With that one term, though, I apparently sound like any old Chinese person. And of all of the sayings or phrases that I could potentially have perfected, it had to have been THAT one. I couldn't have learned "hello" or "nice to meet you" perfectly. No, I had to learn the one that means "crap" or gets used to denote "well, that sucked."

Aiyah.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pink

Way back in high school, there was a male teacher that all the girls thought was attractive. It was an open secret that a bunch of them had crushes on him. In fact, the school newspaper even did an article about him that quoted some girl saying, "he's so cute, he even makes pink look good." Yes, he had worn a pink shirt to school one day, and it had apparently been a big hit. I was reminded of this story when my sister-in-law suggested that she would choose pink as the color for her wedding and bridal party. I don't think I've ever made a color look good before, but I remember thinking, "well, I know it's possible to not look stupid in pink as a straight guy, I guess I can try." And I think that's almost exactly what I told her. I also happened to own a gray suit, so I figured the combination would look all right. However, I was pretty much the only one willing to play along. My sister-in-law's brothers wanted absolutely no part of th...

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...