Expressions from a bygone age

Textbook from 1940 reveals how quickly language, cultural attitudes become passe

'A great multitude surges along the uneven narrow footwalk or in the deepset street; and coolies, bearing heavy loads, shout for way in short sharp cries. Hawkers with guttural sound call their wares... rude boys cry out at the foreigner in a shrill and scornful voice ..."

The scene: China in the early 20th century, as described by W. Somerset Maugham.

Anyone who has experienced the excruciating, high-pitched "helloooo" of the laowai-curious mainlander would be forgiven for thinking

that for expats in China, the more things change, the more they stay the same. But the word coolies gives us a hint of social and linguistic change over the years.

Chinese language textbooks for foreign learners have existed for longer than you might think - Jesuit missionaries created learning tools as early as the 16th century. These old textbooks provide an interesting snapshot of the life and the attitudes of the times in which they were written. Naturally, the original text was printed in traditional script, though they are reprinted here as simplified characters.

What follows are some of the most jarring examples of outdated speech in the book Introduction to Spoken Chinese (《华言拾级》huá yán shí jí), written by the Russian expatriate and sinologue J. J. Brandt, as well as suggestions for what a contemporary expat might say instead.

The help

Tomorrow we are moving; hire some coolies.

Míngtiān wǒmén bānjiā, gù jǐgè kǔlì lái.

明天我们搬家，雇几个苦力来。

These days of course, we would be hiring the removal people (搬家公司 bānjiā gōngsī) and not coolies.

The Chinese for coolie - 苦力 (kǔ lì), literally "hard labor", is an example of a phonetic translation that is also a good phono-semantic match.

A modern equivalent would be:

Hire a removal company.

Qǐng yìjiā bānjiā gōngsī lái.

请一家搬家公司来。

A coolie, essentially a slave laborer, is a relic of the imperial past, and the term has become something of a slur.

But are those wizened, sun-dried men who tire ceaselessly on their overladen trikes in towns and cities across the country even today not coolies all but in name? You may think so, but in past times, coolies were no better off than medieval serfs. In the time this textbook was written, coolies were seen as almost sub-human.

This is my No 1 house boy.

Zhè shì wǒ de guǎnshì de.

这是我的管事的。

We have now moved into an age of the ayi (阿姨 āyí), the maid, and no longer have house servants. House boys were generally native boys who helped with the household tasks of their (usually foreign) masters.

Nowadays, having a "native" boy about the house to iron your socks would be more than just frowned upon, but it is still perfectly OK in certain expat circles if your "house boy" is a matronly woman and is paid the minimum wage. And if you happen to have more than one ayi, we hope you are not ranking them by number either.

The modern equivalent:

This is my ayi.

Zhè shì wǒ de āyí.

这是我的阿姨。

Is your master at home?

Nǐ de lǎoyé zài jiā me?

你的老爷在家么？

"Master", of course, sounds terribly classist. These days we would ask after one's employer or landlord:

Is your employer in?

Lǎobǎn zài ma?

老板在吗？

The book goes on to supply a typical reply:

Our master is out, but the young master is at home.

Wǒmén lǎoyé chū mén le. Shàoyé zàijiā na.

我们老爷出门了。少爷在家那。

He is my rickshaw man.

Tā shì wǒ de lā chē de.

他是我的拉车的。

While the terminology has changed, plenty of people still have drivers. Nowadays we would say:

He's my driver.

Tā shì wǒ de sījī.

他是我的司机。

Rickshaws (人力车 rénlìchē, literally "person-powered vehicle") have never quite died out in China's busy city centers as they are a cheap and quick means of going short distances in overly congested streets, the real difference being, these days, people do not tend to have a "rickshaw man" on staff.

Rolling up to a high-powered business meeting in a rickshaw pulled by a sweaty, semi-naked man does not have quite the same effect as arriving in an Audi with your own personal driver.

Hygiene

Hurry up and bring me some water to wash my face.

Nǐ kuài gěi wǒ dǎ xǐliǎn shuǐ lái.

你快给我打洗脸水来。

In an age where running tap water is taken for granted, we no longer need people to fetch us a bowl of water with which to carry out our morning wash. Nor would it be considered terribly polite to do so.

A modern equivalent would be:

Could I please have a basin of water to wash my face?

Qǐng gěi wǒ yì pén xǐliǎn shuǐ.

请给我一盆洗脸水。

Note how in the original example the speaker is commanding someone to rush off and get some water - "Chop-chop, on the double, serving boy" - but in the 21st century, even when we are telling our employees or subordinates what to do, it should still be couched in polite terms, hence the use of 请 (qǐng), "please".

If you have no time the whole year, do you not take baths at all?

Ruò shì nǐ yìnián méi yǒu gōngfu, yě bù xǐzǎo me?

若是你一年没有工夫，也不洗澡么？

Related to the last example, hygiene has come a long way in 80 years. This example tells us a lot about the attitudes of wealthy expats to the locals back in the day - and these attitudes have not really changed, a situation exacerbated by the fact that large numbers of rural dwellers tend not to have regular baths, especially in the more frigid, arid north.

If you are really dying to know the bathing habits of a Chinese acquaintance, you could ask:

When was the last time you had a shower?

Nǐ shàngcì xǐzǎo shì shénme shíhòu?

你上次洗澡是什么时候?

Please bear in mind that we do not advise you do this; after all, it usually pays to be polite.

This article is not worth a single copper.

Zhège dōngxi yí gè tóngzǐr yě bù zhí.

这个东西一个铜子儿也不值。

This example is not evaluating the relative worth of the very article you are now reading, but is in fact talking about commodities in general - the equivalent phrase in (British) English being "this isn't worth a penny" - copper coins are no longer used

in China, so this phrase has gone completely out of date, though it would still be understood as an archaism.

In today's China, a common expression used to suggest that something is worthless would be:

This is not worth a single fen.

Zhè yìfēn qián dōu bù zhí.

这一分钱都不值。

Fen (分 fēn) is the smallest unit of the renminbi - so small in fact that it has practically disappeared from use. We can see then that the sentence structure has not really changed, only the currency-specific vocabulary - from coppers to fen.

As a final aside, the inside cover

of the book reads: "Modern students of Chinese owe a good deal to

Mr Brandt and will find additional reasons to thank him for this new text."

Quite so, for we can also thank Brandt for such pedagogic classics as Literary Chinese, Wenli Particles and Modern Newspaper Chinese, and though we "modern students" no longer have need of coolies and house boys, we can still genuinely appreciate the slice of social history that Brandt's work has served to preserve.

Courtesy of The World of Chinese,

www.theworldofchinese.com

The World of Chinese

(China Daily 05/10/2013 page17)