Beijing Sounds — 北京的声儿

On cooking your own shrimp YU style; free dinners in exchange for linguistic data; idiolects and other non-languages

If you could map a man’s acquired vocabulary to a human body, there is no doubt that in the case of your correspondent, for Mandarin, the representative human body would be that of a three-week-old infant, with the freakishly large head representing words associated with the kitchen. Grotesquely disproportionate to all other body parts, this head would have vocabulary for describing food that is salty, sweet, savory, rich, oily… meat that is overcooked, gamey, tender, lean, fatty… vegetables that are crisp, tough, boiled, steamed… And oh! the words of praise this precocious head would be able to conjure up for the cook at the stove.

Alas, the acquisition of this shelf-buckling vocabulary has been in no way proportional to an advance in the cooking ability of its owner.

It’s possible that my spatulistic impairmant does not, in fact, qualify me as the worst cook in the northern hemisphere. As Taleb would say, the fact that no one has ever seen a worse cook does not mean one does not exist. However, in this case you’re probably better off not putting money on such a highly improbable event. I could ruin cocoa. I have ruined cocoa. I can render pancake mix inedible. It’s not that I don’t appreciate good food: I just have no aptitude for making it. Period.

At Yuèmǔ University, the unfortunate situation is well known. Thus, except for a select meal or two on special occasions, this perennial student is excused from the usual sharing of cafeteria duties. Instead, operations have evolved into a division of labor, with this undergraduate assigned to the cleaning of dishes (under House rules naturally, with no mention made by anyone, any time, of the alternative function of the two-shelved, under-counter drying rack which at certain permissive institutions has sometimes been known by the name of “dishwasher.”)

It all runs like clockwork under normal circumstances. However, under conditions of separation, such as the current study abroad program that has the Beijing Sounds studio running out of an apartment in exotic Minnesota, far from the safety and comfort of the YU Beijing campus, exceptions must be made in light of YU’s second axiom of eating.

To refresh the memory, the first axiom had to do with kids:

“Kids will not eat unless you are constantly berating them to do it.”

The second is a parallel for the YU student body:

“Death by malnourishment is the only possible outcome for any student or alum who leaves the YU campus — unless the teaching staff is in constant contact about ways to avoid it.”

Yes, I do get plenty of cooking ideas via Skype when we’re apart. Let’s see if you can do better than I did. Here are the instructions.

[You may notice the recipe monologue is a bit disjointed. Unfortunately, the recording somehow failed to get my side of the conversation, so you can't hear my questions and we miss out on some amusing Zhonglish analysis -- pity.]

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你要是虾炒绿菜花儿还是你光炒虾？
Nǐ yàoshi xiā chǎo lǜcàihuār, háishì nǐ guāng chǎo xiā?
Are you making shrimp with broccoli or just making shrimp?

光炒虾，就咱们那虾，那个你放一点儿葱
Guāng chǎo xiā, jiù zánmen nèi xiā, nèige nǐ fàng yīdiǎnr cōng
Just frying shrimp, the shrimp that we have, well you put in a little green onion

葱，姜，蒜，三样儿
Cōng, jiāng, suàn — sān yàngr
Green onion, ginger, garlic — three things

你把那个由啊先把那虾搁的里边儿一炒
Nǐ bǎ nèige yóu ā, xiān bǎ nèi xiā gēde lǐbianr yī chǎo
You put in the oil and first put in the shrimp and as soon as it’s fried

然后你把这三样儿东西往里头一炒，跟那虾一块儿一炒
Ránhòu nǐ bǎ zhèi sān yàngr dōngxi wǎnglǐtou yī chǎo, gēn nèi xiā yīkuàr yī chǎo.
Then you put in the three things and fry it all together with the shrimp.

然后放一点儿醋，放一点儿料酒，再房一点儿，一点儿，我想想
Ránhòu fàng yīdiǎnr cù, fàng yīdiǎnr liàojiǔ, zài fàng yīdiǎnr, yīdiǎnr, wǒ xiǎngxiang
Then you put in a little vinegar, put in a little cooking wine, and put in a little, a little — let me think

一个半勺儿吧。一个半就是你那个勺儿的那格儿不是有一个半吗？
Yīgè bàn sháor ba. Yīgè bàn jiùshì nǐ nèige sháorde nèi gér bùshì yǒu yīgè bàn ma?
A half spoon. A half spoon — exactly doesn’t that spoon have a half (measure) on it? [referring to a tablespoon]

我想可能得放，放一个格儿的醋，放一个半格儿的料酒
Wǒ xiǎng kěnéng děi fàng, fàng yīgè gér de cù, fàng yīgè bàn gér de liào jiǔ.
I think maybe you need to put, put one measure/dose [i.e. one tbsp] of vinegar; put in one-half a measure/dose of cooking wine

再放两个格儿的那个酱油
Zài fàng liǎngge gérde nèige jiāngyóu.
And put in two measures [i.e. 2 tbsp] of soy sauce

你要是搁那个老抽啊，可就是少搁一点儿就成了
Nǐ yàoshi gē nèige lǎochōu ā, kě jiùshì shǎo gē yīdiǎnr jiù chéngle,
If you have that dark soy sauce though, just putting in a little is enough

你要是搁生抽那就可以稍微多一点儿
Nǐ yàoshi gē shēngchōu nà jiù kěyǐ shāowēi duō yīdiǎnr.
If you put in light soy sauce then it’s ok to put in a little more.

对不对。那老抽颜色太深是吧。先放油炒菜。
Duìbuduì. Nèi lǎochōu yánsè tài shēn, shìba. Xiān fàng yóu, chǎo xiā.
Right? That dark soy sauce’s color is too deep, you know. First put in the oil and fry the shrimp.

吵了虾以后你看虾变红了，然后你把葱姜蒜放在里边儿
Chǎole xiā yíhòu, nǐ kàn xiā biàn hóngle, ránhòu nǐ bǎ cōng-jiāng-suàn fàng zài lǐbianr.
After frying the shrimp, you see the shrimp have turned red, then you put in the green onion-ginger-garlic

然后就放醋，料酒，酱油。
Ránhòu jiù fàng cù, liàojiǔ, jiāngyóu.
Then you put in the vinegar, cooking wine, soy sauce.

然后呢你在放一点儿盐，少放一点儿盐。这虾不要太咸
Ránhòu ne nǐ zài fàng yīdiǎnr yán, shǎo fàng yīdiǎnr yán, zhèi xiā bùyào tài xián
Then you put in a little salt, just put in a little salt — you don’t want the shrimp to be too salty

然后你再放一点儿糖，一个那个小勺儿的那糖就够。
Ránhòu nǐ zài fàng yīdiǎnr táng, yīgè nèige xiǎo sháorde nèi táng jiù gòu.
Then you put in a little sugar, one of those little spoons of sugar is enough.

那个虾啊，你可以买一个绿菜花儿你知道吗。
Nèige xiā ā, nǐ yě kěyǐ mǎi yīgè lǜcàihuār, nǐ zhīdao ma.
That shrimp — you can also buy broccoli, you know

跟虾一块儿炒也挺好吃的
Gēn xiā yīkuàr chǎo yě tǐng hǎo chīde.
Together with the shrimp it’s also very good.

[Mentally insert my missing question about the typical word for broccoli]

北京都说叫绿菜花儿
Běijīng dōu shuō jiào lǜcàihuār
In Beijing we call broccoli “lǜcàihuār”

叫西兰花儿，叫绿菜花儿，管那白的就叫菜花儿就成了
Jiào xīlánhuār, jiào lǜcàihuār [laughing], guǎn nèi báide jiù jiào càihuār, jiù chéngle.
It’s called “xīlánhuār”, or it’s called “lǜcàihuār”, talking about the white stuff [cauliflower] just call it “càihuār” and that’s fine

北京都说叫绿菜花儿
Běijīng dōu shuō jiào lǜcàihuār
In Beijing we call it “lǜcàihuār”

你先做这个
Nǐ xiān zuò zhèige.
Make this one first.

等了你买了绿菜花儿以后我再教给你虾跟绿菜花儿怎么炒。
Děngle nǐ mǎile lǜcàihuār yīhòu wǒ zài jiāo gěi nǐ xiā gēn lǜcàihuār zénme chǎo.
Wait until you buy some broccoli and I’ll teach you how to cook “shrimp with broccoli”

I can attest that the result from the professor is delicious. I can also attest that my result was, by definition, edible. I ate it. But the difference between the two indicates that something must be getting lost in translation.

This, more laconically, is the way I tried to make the dish for one:

10 medium shrimp
1 green onion, sliced thin
1 slice of fresh ginger, chopped fine
1 clove of garlic, crushed and chopped
1/2 tbsp cooking wine
1 tbsp Chinese vinegar
2 tbsp light (colored) soy sauce
1 tsp sugar

oil in the skillet — 2 tbsp?
1/2 tsp sugar?

If you feel the inspiration and try it: let me know what happens. Do you end up with something more appealing than this?

The raw materials…

The destroying operation…

The typical Beijing Sounds table…

Zhèi, Nèi — What’s beyond Beijing?

As you can hear in the recording, the Yuèmǔ U Beijing campus adheres pretty closely to the hútòngr pronunciation of “zhèi, nèi” (这，那 = this, that) instead of “zhè, nà” (which is the pǔtōnghuà standard as far as I know, although both spellings do appear to work in the IME that I’m using). At the Beijing Sounds Studios we’ve always been interested in finding a map of how far zhèi/nèi extends beyond the capital. So as part of our Frequent Reader Award Program (FRAP), a free hand-crafted shrimp dinner, cooked in the kitchenette outside the Beijing Sounds studio, is being offered to anyone who can find an authoritative source.

Barring that, if you feel inspired, take a minute to record some local speech wherever you are in Mandarin Country, count up the zhèi/nèi vs. zhè/nà and send it all in (bjshengr -at- gmail -dot- com). Just make sure you get some background on where the speaker grew up. If I can make any sense of it, I’ll post the whole muddle as a starting hypothesis.

[update: for more zhei/nei see here and here]

Broccoli, or Green Cauliflower

A coworker from California last year asked me for help in negotiating the cafeteria in the mall near our Cháoyángqū (朝阳区 = district in Beijing) office. Evidently, her favorite dish at one of the counters there officially included a dash of broccoli, according to the picture on the counter. But cafeteria production being what it is, some days she got broccoli and some days she didn’t. Undoubtedly one surmises, this is in accordance with the day’s price of broccoli and no extent of laowai pleading was going to get her that broccoli if the price was not right. No matter: she was determined that I was going to teach her the word for broccoli.

And so I did and thought no more of the matter.

Until the next day when she began berating me for not knowing the word for broccoli. Not knowing? Really? Impossible! What could be easier to remember than lǜcàihuār (绿菜花儿 = broccoli or lit. “green cauliflower”）?

And yet,when I queried a colleague or two they all appeared mystified. Oh, that stuff? No, I’ve never heard it called lǜcàihuār, just xīlánhuār (西兰花儿 = broccoli)

I began to get suspicious. Could it be that YU had broken with tradition and given me, instead of pure Beijing dialect, simply a private language word — “green cauliflower” ha! isn’t that funny?! we can call it green cauliflower since he already knows the word for cauliflower! — a word that only our family could understand and which was spoken only to accommodate the bumbling Zhonglish speaker in our midst? Something in the idiolect/family-lect tradition of Vladimir = Farty Baby?!

Right up until the present time I’m still not quite sure, but I have had enough conversations around the topic that I’m starting to see hope once again for its legitimacy. Any evidence from outside the BJS studios? What comes out of your favorite Mandarin-speaker’s mouth when they see this?