标题: Americans in China + A Taiwanese in US [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 1-12-2015 10:30 标题: Americans in China + A Taiwanese in US 本帖最后由 choi 于 1-12-2015 13:08 编辑
Debra Bruno, Life With Ayi: On the Relationship Between an Expat and Her Chinese Maid. China Real Time, Jan 12, 2015
blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/01/12/life-with-ayi-on-the-relationship-between-an-expat-her-chinese-maid/
("Chinese people in general have a different sense of personal boundaries”)
My comment:
(a) Chinese are "gasping if a mom tries to give her little one a drink of cold milk. Think of a cross between Hazel and Amelia Bedelia with Chinese characteristics."
(i) Hazel (TV series)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_%28TV_series%29
(an American sitcom about a fictional live-in maid named Hazel Burke; 1961-1966)
(ii) Amelia Bedelia (book)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Bedelia_(book)
(a housekeeper; Despite meaning well, Amelia cannot seem to do anything right because she does not understand the vernacular used by her employers)
* For "dresses the chicken," see
(A) salad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad
(section 5 Dressings)
(B) dress (vt): "to prepare for use or service; specifically : to prepare for cooking or for the table <dress a salad>" www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dress
(C) dress (vt): "2: treat or prepare (something) in a certain way, in particular: 2.2 clean and prepare (food, especially poultry or shellfish) for cooking or eating: (as adjective dressed) <dressed crab>" www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/dress
(iii) The traditional notion in Taiwan was one could not eat anything cold (milk, etc) for breakfast. (Why? I did not know.) So people warmed the milk in the morning before drinking it. Then many questioned its wisdom, seeing in American televisions (that was added Chinese subtitles and re-broadcast there) Americans do it all the time.
(b) "Once I came home from a trip to Cambodia with a raging cold, sniffling and sneezing all over the house. My ayi saw that I was drinking lemon tea, and she said something to the effect of: Don’t be drinking fruit tea. And then she searched through my fridge and cabinets until, with some help from the TrainChinese app on my iPad, I figured out that she was looking for ginger. I produced some ground ginger, and she dug up some old brown sugar. She mixed a heap of brown sugar with about a half a jar of ground ginger in a saucepan, boiled it for a couple of minutes, and served it up to me in a big mug."
In Taiwan there was no folk remedy for common cold (when I was there).
(c) "Many Chinese beliefs about health are related to body temperature"
In Taiwan, I did not hear about REAL temperature (except a general belief that if a person slept outdoor on the ground, even during daytime in summer, would get 风湿 (bone aching (especially, in old age), as opposed to rheumatic fever 风湿病 rheumatoid arthritis 類风湿關節炎 in Western medicine sooner or later). Many Some Taiwanese did have convictions about imagined temperature of objects, which is either hot or cold. For example, eating something will cause 火气大, and therefore nose bleeding 流鼻血. Or "肝火旺，腎寒."
(d) "In the summer, if I tried to venture out in the sunshine without any kind of covering, she’d hand me an umbrella."
A "parasol"?
(e) "I tried to tell her that Smudge, the cat, had hurt her leg when she tried to jump over a blanket in the morning. * * * I tried to look up the word ‘fell.’ My options were fa 伐, fell or cut down; kanfa 砍伐, to fell trees; daofa 盜伐, to fell trees unlawfully, yiju 一举, one fell swoop; sheng ju mu duan 绳锯木断, a rope can cut through a log, little strokes fell great oaks.”
She barked up the wrong tree. The Chinese characters she should have been looking into is “fall” (rather than “fell”) for 跌倒.
作者: choi 时间: 1-12-2015 10:31
(2) Andria Cheng, Treasures From Home Help Bridge the Distance: A Taiwanese Expat in the US. China Real Time, Jan 12, 2015.
blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/01/02/treasures-from-home-help-bridge-the-distance-a-taiwanese-expat-in-the-u-s/
("More than a decade after I [came to US from Taiwan] One thing I haven’t fully accepted is the ice-cold water restaurants serve in the US, even during cold winter months. “Did you say hot water?” waiters often ask when I gather up my courage to request it. In some Eastern culture, hot water is generally believed to be gentler and more agreeable to one’s constitution than ice-cold water")
My comment:
(a) As I indicate in the preceding posting, gradually fewer and fewer people drank hot water--it was too troublesome to heat it and drink it. So only those who had time drink it, in the form of 老人茶.
(b) "Sometimes I’ll bring back individually packaged pineapple cakes 鳳梨酥 or flaky 'sun cake' 太陽餅 pastries, which are among Taiwan’s signature treats."
I had not known when growing up that 太陽餅 was unique to Taiwan--and have not until now.作者: choi 时间: 1-12-2015 13:11
In the first posting, about Ms Debra Bruno's blog, I forgot to explain "Hazel" and "Amelia Bedelia." Jus now I corrected and added (i) and (ii) to (a).