Eric's Beijing Diary

I went to the English Corner this evening. Fewer people tonight, because of the Spring Festival holiday. So many people are gone. But we had a pleasant conversation anyway. When I was leaving, I decided to try an old Lady Bird Johnson goodbye: "See you next week, Lord be willing and the creek don't rise."

I shouldn't have.

"Sorry?"

"Creek is..."

"What is 'rise?'"

It took awhile, but I think I more or less got it across.

Someone asked, "Does everybody know this?"

"Well, if they are from Texas, they've probably heard it before."

It's tough with stuff like this. These young people are pretty clever, but when you use idiomatic expressions that aren't in their language, they can't quite put it together. I remember when we were in northern Japan for a reunion in 1999, and Uncle Bob told a story about Otto Brustad, who was called upon to speak once at the end of a program, and said, "I feel like a mummy. Pressed for time." Roger Olson was translating for Uncle Bob, and said (in Japanese), "I can't translate this, but just laugh anyway." The problem, of course, is that the idiom "pressed for time" doesn't exist in Japanese. Roger could have translated it. I find that Japanese people are generally quite enamored with American idioms; they like hearing about them. But by the time you translated the idiom, the joke just wouldn't be funny anymore. And if the truth be told, it wasn't that terribly hilarious in the first place. I don't think it was really told for humor, it was mainly told as an anecdote about someone who was known and loved by those present.

But the point is that jokes built on idioms require an understanding of the idiom. And most idioms have a cultural history to them. They strike a chord in the minds and thoughts of those who have more or less grown up with the idiom. Chinese has lots of these kinds of things, too. There are many, many old expressions built on idioms. The China Daily generally publishes one a day.