I called my mom this morning to get some confirmation on this chinese name business. The basic chinese name comes in three parts. A last name (duh), and a first name... which is usually two characters.. and within a family, one of those two characters would be the same among siblings and cousins and stuff. So I'm pi yia sen and my brother is pi jie sen. she then went on to say, "Nowadays people don't do that anymore because they aren't cultured like that anymore.. they do whatever the fuck they want." I added that last part. She'll be really proud of me.
After this, I told her I was going to name my kid, pi yiang chu... which so cleverly sounds like it would translate to pi penis.. but I used some homonymy characters and got away with it. Of course my mom wasn't a fan of this name. I told her, "No, it's cool, you can flip it over and stuff like my name." She said, "No, it's really bad. It sounds like 'no penis.' In cantonese pi sounds like no. If you do that you'll ruin your child's life and they'll hate you." I add, "No, I think they'll like it."
Somehow we got onto the chinese zodiac... She asked me, do you remember what sign you're under? I told her I'm a cat... which is wrong.. I'm an ox.. but I did say that the cat was in the vietnamese zodiac.. which she said was correct... so then I just started listing other animals... "There's also the hippo, kangaroo, bats, deer, and the rat." The rat is actually in the zodiac... and the story goes that the rat hitched a ride on the ox and became the first animal to visit buddha or something like that... my mom says the rat was just being smart.. because she's a rat.. I say the rat is a trickster... because I'm an ox... but she asks me... "Do you know what sign I'm under?" and I say, "Yeah. the rat... the big stinky, stupid, dirty, untrustworthy rat." She said, "Yeah....."
I wanted to get my mom's input on the whole watering thing because she was the one that told me not to water plants right before it rains because it would be a waste... She says, "If the weather's nice you should get out of the house." such a mom thing to say and it's fantastic... I tell her... "It was supposed to rain yesterday, but it's nice today... Oh! That old white man was watering the plants yesterday when it was supposed to rain." She said, "that's a waste of water.. you should tell him." I say, "No, I'm going to punch him... I'm going to punch him with so much force that his mustache is going to fall off.." My mom says, "That's not possible... first of all, you shouldn't punch people... you should just inform him... secondly, if you punch his mustache that will take away some of the impact... and finally, you punch a face and you pull on a mustache. that's the only way to get it off." Now... this I find fairly brilliant.. she's giving me instructions. So I tell her, "No no... I'm going to punch him in the face so hard his mustache is going to fall off... like Mike Tyson." She says, "Even Tyson can't do that. A mustache won't fall off from a punch" I say, "What!? Yes he can." She says, "No, it's impossible...... you punch a face and pull on a mustache to get it off." I say, "So I can pull on his mustache and punch his face?" She says, "No, just tell him he's wasting water.." I say, "Ok... I'm going to punch him."
She tells me to keep an eye out for cheap suits again... I tell her, "No.. I think what they want us to wear.. is shorts now."
She also told me to make my paper look nice... I told her I was going to change all the text to chinese.. she was not happy about that because she told me my professor wouldn't be able to read it..
She ends with.. "Ok, work hard.." I tell her, "Say, 'Watch your back.'" The phrase I picked up in prison... She says, "No, work hard.. bye!" I say, "Ok. watch your back. bye."
No comments:
Post a Comment