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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.

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