When was the last time you overheard a conversation so heated, so laced with raw, blunt, foul language that you ended up…cracking up? Well, it was just five days ago while waiting for my flight back to Hong Kong at Bangkok airport that I overheard the most crude, crass, in-your-face exchange between two men.
Here’s how it went – a true story.
“Hey yo, you stupid pig! How can you make this move? Have you lost your aging mind?” Man #1 challenged Man#2.
“What? I want to position this to swallow that….” Man #2 retorted.
“You…you must be out of your stuffed-up mind! You can’t kill with this move! How can you be so f–king stupid like an idiot? Are you going senile? “Man #1 yelled at Man #2.
“Why don’t you piss off? I thought this “soldier” can eat that “horse!” Man #2 tried to defend his game, uttering his words slowly with Man#1 breathing down his neck.
“That can’t happen, you stuff-headed pig! Look what you’re surrounded with, you’d be killed instantly if you make that move! Do you want to set yourself up to die, you big blockhead?” Man #1 persisted.
Truth be told –this original dialogue was in Cantonese Chinese.
And it was going on and on and on during the entire 20 minutes of waiting at the boarding gate. I’d translated highlights of it – almost word for word – literally from Cantonese into English.
Here’s what’s lost in translation.
Man#1 and Man#2 are actually childhood friends, and they were playing a Chinese chess game on an i-pad while waiting to board the flight for Hong Kong.
As I watched and listened more closely, I realized the conversational dynamics are shaped by a set of Chinese values that may be elusive to western-trained minds. As a Chinese American who grew up in Hong Kong, but have spent most of her professional life in America; what first sounded so downright crude and rude, began to sink in. I decided to put aside my American lens, and switch on my Cantonese radar. With my Chinese mindset in full force, my ears tuned into their conversation with a different level of awareness. I started to see how completely at ease these two men were with mouthing off foul language. Even their wives were taking it as absolutely normal, and egging on Man#1 to show Man#2 the way to win. To them, their tone and language are completely normal, entirely a sign of chummy talk between buddies. And to their wives who were looking on, they too were egging on the player getting bullied, urging him to “regain his memory from his senile mind”, and to “show his manhood” “his prowess” that he still can play and win this game.
As I viewed this scenario through their eyes, I began to see a different picture.
I saw a family portrait of old friends who are comfortable with each other enough to use blunt language in an endearing way. I saw a clan of traditional men and women who still care to show the old man in the hot seat how to win a chess game in his advanced age. And I saw how repulsively foul language can sound so incredibly funny when delivered with unrestrained freedom in the name of love and care, within one big family.