A treatise on the unacceptable
Far be it from me to tell you who you should have contempt for, but allow me a brief moment to let you know who makes my list. Right at the top are people who spent their junior semester abroad in Central America, and, upon their return, started referring to the country between Mexico and Honduras as “HHH’WAT-emala”, invariably introducing your face to the finely chewed mist of whatever they had just been failing to eat.
The China version of this, of course, is when a lily-white laowai with aspirations to play the foreign monkey on CCTV4 orders food at a restaurant, declares in overly enunciated tones that “bai cai hen hao chi”, and then looks around the room for approval, like a monkey at the zoo that has learned to masturbate and throw feces at the same time. The person thinks that they have simultaneously displayed their lingual prowess and culinary appreciation, but actually they have just said “cabbage is delicious” - a statement whose utterance is most often reserved for those simultaneously hungry and down’s.
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Dearest Mike,
I fear your comments indicate that my experiences may have been somewhat more singular that I had believed. My criticism is in no way of people who make an investment in the Chinese language. Not only would it be absolutely exhausting to feel superior to that many people, but they are a group for which I have a great deal of admiration (my own Chinese level so often placing me as the pale snarky one in that proverbial corner).
There is, I believe, a distinction to be made between studious learners of Chinese and the target of my vitriol above. The type of person I attempted to describe are those for whom Chinese is not a tool to communicate or a bridge to otherwise inaccessible intellectual pursuits, but a kind of circus act to achieve status/attention/identity in lieu of developing a personality.
It is a small demographic, and perhaps less deserving of criticism than, say, bloggers who complain about people.
Still, I stand by this entry.
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Next time I find the cabbage to be particularly tasty, it will be masturbation and feces throwing all the way!
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By the way, people who are secure enough in their Chinese would find Haagen's entry hilarious, not offensive.
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i wonder if Soulja Boy likes bai cai?
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LOLZ 2 TRU! SO FUNNY!! This brand of sinophitard can also be found in museums, reading the Chinese placards next to each municipal treasure in their grubby sight and then showing you that they're memorizing the hypothesized name of some rando terracotta figurine of an unknown soldier by writing the characters of his name on the open palm of their hand. They look like they're in some ward in which blackberries have been confiscated and they're showing the orderly how busy their 'CEO life' is between noshes on purple pills from miniature dixie cups and crack renditions of ethel merman numbers. Why don't they just wear a yellow patch on their arm that says "I study Chinese and am a lifelong learner"?? Better yet, why don't they go die, and I will help them??
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Haagen is on to something here. Expats are far too pleased with themselves for no justifiable reason.
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Mike, No doubt that learning Chinese for a laowai is a noble and difficult endeavor. And we all know that acquiring each new language requires us to participate at a lower level of intellectual discourse than we're used to. Having guts - the willingness to sound childish and make mistakes for the sake of improvement is one of the twin pillars of virtue of learning a new language.
The other pillar is humility. The fact that you speak Chinese better than your laowai peers doesn't afford you the privilege of distinction, because my ayi will always speak Chinese better than you, regardless of how many years you spend at IUP. Mr. Haagen's point is that enunciating every syllable of "cabbage is delicious" makes you sound like a hammy jackass in any lanaguage. And Mr. Haagen is right. Those people are insufferable.
As a Chinese person, I should point out that anyone who strive to marvel at the use of 成语 in 新京报 is a Fuwa for the Douche Olympics. 成语 are cliches. They're prefab figures of speech that lazy writers overuse to camouflage a lack of substance. Chortling at their cleverness is akin to a Chinese ESL student in America praising the lucidity of the New York Post.
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Damn yandorado just ko'ed the competition. mikeknapp you got served young playa!!!!!!!!!!
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I can't believe you idiots have missed the point: that cabbage is, in fact, incredibly delicious. jesus christ.
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@yandorado
bravo good sir
/golf clap
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Mr yandorado (et al) - I believe you ALL missed the point. Reread my thread you will see that I those were questions of mr. haagen not asertions on my behalf.
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Dear Mikenapp,
In response to your request, I have re-read your post. As a student of Chinese myself, I appreciate your efforts to learn English. A few pointers, from a certified ESL teacher: 'distain' is a spelling of the word 'disdain' that is incorrect. Second, while you have demonstrated your cunning ability to put the 'ass' in 'assertion,' you failed to do the same as you expressed your last point, which is a pity. Keep up the hard work; Jiayou!!
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Geez guys.
Thanks for the nice comments on my post, but there is no need to go after someone just because they disagree. Mike, I appreciate your criticism. Would you be willing to clarify your points?
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This little thread has been the most hilarious thing I've read all day. The imagery of the monkey just killed me and everyone's bantering there after kept me laughing out loud. I think jhaagen clarified his point in his later responses, although I see why mikeknapp was justified in his initial reaction. Mind you, I agree with jhaagen and believe he does have a point characterizing that small specific subgroup of laowais.
As a disclaimer I would say I fall into the category of people that roll their eyes in the corner.
aahhh hammy jackass... you guys crack me up.
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file this one alongside the endless chorus of 'helloooo! howwww aahhhh youuuuu' that follows visible foreigners through the streets of any small city in china. it is difficult and admirable to learn second, third, fourth languages -- but it is easy and pathetic to spout drivel simply to prove you're doing so. we all know this, jonny just finds a funnier way to say it.
@mikeknapp - not only did he answer all your questions, haagen is doing exactly what you ask him to with this post. he's helping mr. baicai and his brethren in the best possible way: letting him know (nicely, anonymously) that he looks like a moron.
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wow, mr. haagen that's a lot of vitriol reserved for someone who is simply trying to learn an otherwise complex language. Would you be the pale white guy in the corner that criticizes everyone from a distance? My, how you have shown you are better them! Is your Chinese so good that you are mistaken for a local? Do you read the op-ed column in the 新京报 and chortle at the cunning usage of 成语 as it juxtaposes contemporary Chinese life and culture? My guess is you’ve made some mistakes in your time (not the least of which is this “blog” entry) so how about making nice and helping the guy instead of pointing your finger with distain.