Lost in Translation + Side Notes

As I was procrastinating my time away on facebook today, I came across this one note from my good friend, Jane. The content was how Hong Kong people translated their Cantonese slang into English. I shall share a few which I thought was hilarious except I think only Jane and Bonnie would understand why it's so funny. Note: it only sounds legit (thanks American friends for making me Americanized) if you say it out loud with a fobby accent.

你教我以後點出黎行?
You teach me how to come out and walk in the future?

你係咪路啊？
Are you road?

你係乜水啊？
What the water are you?

班馬劈友。
Zebra chops people.

美中不足。
American chinese not enough.

笑死我。
Laugh die me.

八婆，你好o野!
Eight woman,you are good!


And then, I thought of one of my own.
老豆
Old bean.

Since coming on exchange, I've had quite a few lost in translation situations also. For instance, one time my housemates and I were talking about going shopping and I declared that I needed to buy a new pair of thongs. My American housemate, Corrine, goggled at me for a good 10 seconds and then said: "You? Thongs??" It took me another 10 seconds to register what was going on and then I realised, you Americans use the term flip flops while we Australians use the term thongs. What you guys call thongs, we call G-strings.

Then there was another time when I was sitting with Jezli. The wind was picking up so another friend, Kelly, offered her jacket. I told Jezli that she can have the jacket since I've already go a jumper on. Except this time I didn't even realise she had no clue what I was talking about so I kept repeating the word jumper for another minute or so before I registered her O.o look. Bahaha, so I got told that Americans use the term sweater. Okay, next time.

I also had no idea that arvo was an Australian term so I used that a good few times with some Americans and got wide-eyed looks from all of them. But they came up with a good question, where does the 'v' come from?

Corrine also got tripped out when Fifi kept using the term petrol station instead of gas station during their LA trip.

But it is a mutual relationship when it comes to lost in translation. For example, someone asked me whether I've had boba before. Having no clue what boba was, I of course answered no, I haven't had boba before. Shocked, they took me to the boba place only for me to find out that what they call boba, we call pearl milk tea!

~~~

Tonight our permanent guest, Mr. William Creagh, decided to cook us dinner because he felt guilty for staying at our place all the time without paying rent. Fair enough. He made us some pasta topped with deep-fried fish. It was sooooo nice. Do you know why? Because the pasta was made from all-Australian wheat. ;)

It's funny seeing what all the Australians here get sent from home. My roommate, Indako, already has had olives, Tim Tams, (For my two American friends following, you have to try them! They are sooo good! And this is coming from someone who dislikes chocolate. I heard that they're available in Ralph's.) vegemite, and even Meegoran! (Again, for my two American friends following, Meegoran is THE best study food out there. You don't know what you're missing out.)

Anyways, the whole point of all this food talk is to point out the fact that I cannot, for the life of me, cook anything. If I ever get married, my husband will need to know how to cook or we'll both starve to death or be utterly broke because we'd be eating out all the time.



P.S. Have you ever gotten annoyed at someone but you can't tell them because 1) it would cause more trouble or 2) because it's not even worth telling them? I'm feeling like that right now.