The Monkey Kings 美猴王

The Kings have been learning Chinese idioms and have decided that English could benefit from them. We have thus decided to translate and disseminate some of them. We prefer the four word variety, and will give credit to the Chinese when using them in conversation. For example, when the traffic is heavy, one can say “As the Chinese say, ‘car water horse dragon’ [车水马龙].”

As things get worse, one can say “river stream sun under” [江河日下]。 Then you must “fight heaven stand ground” [顶天立地]; because, as we know, “more toil more get” [多劳多得]. You can “self have public speak” [自有公论] when you are popular, though it could mean “ten thousand water one thousand mountain” [万水千山] to get there.

We’ve also decided to streamline some English idioms into the four word/four syllable format in order to make everyone’s life easier. Instead of the cumbersome “beware of Greeks bearing gifts”, one can now simply say “watch out Greek horse” (translated into Chinese possibly as “希马注意”?). One ought not to “kill gold egg goose”, nor should one ever “make me monkey” (make a monkey out of someone)–unless, of course, you are the Monkey King. “Horse first then cart” is a lesson for anyone learning these new idioms, for as we know, “walk slow win race”.

The Monkey Kings have decided that, for the full month of July, we shall be speaking entirely (stay tuned for the exceptions) in Chinese. If we are speaking with my wife, the Chinese English tutors and other Chinese coworkers, with each other and almost everyone else, we will be speaking only in Chinese. The only exceptions are the obvious ones: with our students and with people who don’t know Chinese.

It hasn’t been as hard so far as I expected. We are in class 25 hours a week, we watch a little tv, read newspapers and books and listen to music in English, and when we simply can’t express something, we’ll speak in English (just for a word here or there, of course). So we are around enough English that we are not desperate to speak it. But I know how these processes go: there is a honeymoon stage, a period where it is really annoying and you wonder why you did it in the first place, and then a time when it gets to feel more natural. That is the culture shock curve or circle or pie chart (however you present it), and I’ll bet this will be the same.

This month is a great opportunity for us to drastically improve our Chinese fluency, and I think mine has improved already. I ask people to correct me when I make mistakes, and hopefully being corrected will help me avoid picking up any bad habits. That said, I don’t trust many Chinese people to correct me very often. The culture prohibits it as rude. People are loath to do anything that could be perceived as rude, even if they are your friends and you say you are fine with it. They are like Canadians that way. I have been in this situation before. To people learning a language, I recommend finding someone you trust to practice with, someone you trust to correct you frequently in your speaking. You only need one or two people like that and a little discipline. You will lose your bad habits.

July is not just a chance to improve fluency but a chance to cement all the grammatical constructions (word order is my biggest weakness in learning a language) and vocabulary I learn this month. So I should be reading my exercise book more… on top of work, preparing speeches, starting our company, writing my book and going to the gym. I’m busier than I’ve been since December. It feels great!