Beijing Sounds — 北京的声儿

Eterrrnally grrrateful to pinyin.info for bringing Talk Like a Pirate Day to the attention of the ever-unvigilant writing staff here at the Beijing Sounds studios, who apparently missed this well-known international holiday entirely. Having once been credited with (accused of?) promoting R-fulness in the speaking of Mandarin, the editor is happy to adopt the holiday as his own by giving the staff the afternoon off beyond 4:30, handing them leftover moon cakes and bottles of milk (with smiley stickers over the well-known local brand name) as they walk out the door.

Like a cask of Amontillado, the deep recesses of the studio’s cold storage facility have been preserving the following recording for just this sort of occasion. It features the voice of the very same taxi driver made famous last March by his blunt assessment of Chinese characters: Pò zìr! (破 字儿 = lousy characters). At some point in that conversation, I asked him for an example of real Beijing dialect that outsiders wouldn’t know. The recording starts with him hesitating (SJ = sījī, 司机，driver), then coming up with some serious R-fulness:

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Yě méiyǒu shénme…shénme “jiǎn lòur” nǐ dǒng ma?
也没有什么。。。什么捡漏儿你懂吗？
Well there’s not really anything… well do you understand “jiǎn lòur”?

Me: Jiélòur

SJ: Jiǎn lòngr* lòur — ā bùdǒng ba.
捡漏儿啊不懂吧
jiǎn lòur — oh, you don’t understand

Me: Bùdǒng
不懂
No

SJ: Hǎoduō — nǐ xiǎng qù nèixiē gǔwán shìchǎng
好多，你想去那些古玩市场
A lot — you want to go to one of those curio markets

nǐ dǒng ma? Jiùhuò shìchǎng
你懂吗？ 旧货市场
You understand? Second-hand market

Nǐ qù jiùhuò mǎide yī xiē gǔwán zìhuà shénmede
你在旧货买的一些古玩字画什么的
You go to the second-hand shop and buy some curio, calligraphy, whatever

Nǐ huāde hěn xiǎode qián mǎile yīyàngr hěn tēbié chènxīn de dōngxi
你花得很小的钱买了一样儿很特别称心的东西
You spend just a little money to buy some really fine thing

Xiànle piányi le. Zhèi jiào piányi lòur
现了便宜了。 这叫便宜漏儿
You feel like it’s cheap. That’s called a cheap “leak” [i.e. a good deal]

*Update to correct spelling of lòur. Shows how I was confused about what word/sound it was when first transcribing — then forgot to correct it before posting.

I had to consult my only friend available (non-Beijinger but 东北) on the word itself. Couldn’t find it in any dictionary via the usual methods. Kept trying “long” or “lo”, but missed the obvious lòu (漏 = leak).

So his analysis? He agrees that the driver’s given us pretty good Běijīnghuà — hardly anyone would hear the term and understand it out of context unless they’re long-time Beijingers. The nuance, he says, is something of the impression that you’ve discovered a deal so good it’s almost got to be someone’s mistake. If I was to apply YU experience, I’d hazard a guess that it’s related to this common practice among the Facilities personnel: turn on the spigot to just enough of a drip that you can slowly fill a bucket over the course of the day, but not enough of a flow that it actually gets the water meter running. This way you’ve got water aplenty, and the price is just right. Jiǎn lòur indeed!