Beijing Sounds — 北京的声儿

On the dispensability of disposable paper products

Beijing Sounds management comes from a strong anti-paper tradition, having grown up with cloth napkins (non-matching, mostly) rolled into individually labeled napkin rings. There was also the spasm of late 70s anti-paper-product activism that accompanied the arrival of First American Uncle Beijing Sounds, when Grandmother Beijing Sounds threw in her lot with the rapidly dwindling cloth diaper crowd, enduring three years or so of leaks and blowouts for the sake of not supporting the landfill business. And to complete the anti-disposable trifecta: there was downright hostility to the adoption of the paper towel, a technology so scorned that to this day the editor at the Beijing Sounds Studios must overcome an uneasy feeling of gluttonish consumerism in order to tear one off the roll. Come to think of it, in fact, this particular product is once again no longer a part of the BJS Studios lifestyle. Since purchasing was delegated to Yuèmǔ U. as part of the permanent move to Beijing, and seeing that YU, too, regards most disposable products quite skeptically, it was natural that the paper towel would gradually find itself squeezed off the shelf.

The arguments made by marketers on behalf of disposable paper — arguments we‘ve bought into, hook, line and sinker — are weak at best and often just plain disingenuous. Are the paper products really cleaner and more sanitary, really? Even if they are, is the presence of less bacteria really better for your overall health, actually? It’s pretty easy to give a halfhearted yes and move on, because, oh, those paper substitutes are so much easier to deal with.

Pushed into a corner, though, we might be willing to admit that the alternatives are functional, if hardly hassle-free. Cloth napkins? Sure, we even do that at fancy restaurants, right? Cloth diapers? Uh, well, sure, I guess, in a pinch…

But c’mon: toilet paper?!

Wait, wait, don’t cancel your studio tour yet. Beijing Sounds does recognize the need for conventionality in some cases, and equips its facilities with all the modern conveniences. It’s just a hypothetical. But a toilet paper-free world is not as far away as you might think. Wikipedia may quote reliable sources on Chinese TP dating back to antiquity, but having to do without the soft stuff, or even any kind of paper at all, is living memory here in Beijing, especially if you venture out of the city and into the countryside.

In today’s recording of a recent YU lecture you can hear about, in this order:

1. The first paper napkin sighting
2. Toilet paper alternatives in Gansu (starting at line 10)
3. Traditional disposable diaper materials (starting line 18)

[As with the last recording, here's a separate page with the dialog text linked to the sound file, so you can listen one section at a time and jump to whatever point you're interested in, thanks to EXMARaLDA technology.]

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1	YU	Gāng kāishǐ ā, zuì yǒu yìsi.	刚开始啊最有意思。	At the beginning it was really interesting.
2		Èrtóng cóng Shēnzhēn huílai.	Ertong [名字] 从深圳回来。	Ertong [name] came back from Shenzhen.
3		Tā jiù dàizhe zhèizhǒng zhǐ shénme shénme huílai.	他就带着这种纸什么什么回来。	He brought back some kind of paper with him.
4		Běijīng nèi shíhòu dōu méi — fǎnzheng wǒmen jiā kěndìng shì méiyǒu.	北京那时候都没，反正我们家肯定是没有。	At that time Beijing — or anyway at our house we didn’t have any.
5		Ránhòu nèige, wǒ jiù qíguài, wǒ jiù wèn tā, wǒ shuō: “Shēnzhēn méi shuǐ?”	然后那个，我就奇怪，我就问他，我说：“深圳没水？”	Then, well, I just asked him, I thought it was really strange, I asked: “Isn’t there water in Shenzhen?”
6		Chīwánle wèi shénme bù ná shuǐ qù xǐxǐ shǒu xǐxǐ liǎn?	吃完了为什么不拿水去洗洗手洗洗脸？	After eating why don’t you use water to wash off your hands and face?
7		Wǒ shuō gànmá ná zhǐ cā, nà néng cā gānjìng a?	我说干嘛拿纸擦，那能擦干净啊？	I said why would you use paper — can you really clean up that way?
8		Lǎolao nèi shíhòu jiù tèbié, zhèi jiào “tǔlǎomàor”.	姥姥那时候就特别，这叫土：“土老冒儿”。	Grandma (i.e. referring to herself) at that time was really — this is called a “country hick.”
9	PBS	Tǔlǎomàor!	土老冒儿！	Country hick!
10	YU	Ei wǒ zài Gānsù de shíhòu háiyǒu de. Jiù cèsuǒ pángbiānr a…	诶我在甘肃的时候还有的。就厕所旁边儿啊。。。	Hey, when I was in Gansu province there was also (a story). Right next to the toilet…
11		fàng de hǎo duō, jiùshi dōu shì nèige…	放的好多，就是都是那个。。。	they had put all these, well they were all these…
12	PBS	Yīge nèige shítou	一个那个石头	One of those stones
13	YU	Bùshì shítou. Jiùshi nèige tǔ.	不是石头。就是那个土。	They weren’t rocks. It was some kind of dirt/earth.
14		Níde nèige yīkuàir, yī gāder yī gāder de –	泥的那个一块儿，一??(旮打儿？)的——	Made out of mud, a piece, a clump of –
15	SYZ	Zhìzào de nèige?	制造的那个？	A manufactured thing?
16	YU	Bùshì! Jiùshì tāmen — bùzhīdao cóng nǎr wāchūlai de, jiù fàng zài nèr le	不是！就是他们——不知道从哪儿挖出来的，就放在那儿了	Not at all! They just — I don’t know where it’s dug up from and then put there
17		Zhèi jiùshì tāmen de…	这就是他们的…	This is their… [unfinished, but the idea is that it's their way of taking care of their backsides]
18		Nèige (Nège?) nóngcūn de nèi xiǎohár, nǎr yǒu “diaper”? Bù kěnéng!	那个农村的那小孩儿，哪儿有“diaper”？不可能！	These country kids, where are they going to find diapers? Impossible!
19	PBS	[bùqīngchu] hǎoduō hǎo…	【不清楚】好多好。。。	[unclear] a lot of…
20		Jiù bùchuān kùchǎr, jiù gē jǐzhāng zhǐ.	就不穿裤衩儿，就搁几张纸。	They don’t wear underpants, just put on some pieces of paper.
21	YU	Yě bùshì gē zhǐ, lián bù dōu méiyǒu. Jiùshì shuō…	也不是搁纸，连布都没有。就是说。。。	No it’s not about putting on paper — they don’t even have cloth! It’s like…
22		Zài méiyǒu “diaper” — Zhōngguó jiù xiàng jiùde bù gěi tāmen diàn zài lǐbianr, yào lā de niào wǒmen zài xǐ.	在没有“diaper” — 中国就像旧的布给他们垫在里边儿，要拉的尿我们再洗。	When there weren’t diapers — in China we gave them something like old cloth tucked inside, then if they poop or pee we wash it.
23		Tāmen lián bù dōu méiyǒu. Nóngcūn nǎr zhǎo nème duō bù, nǎr zhǎo nème duō shuǐ gěi xǐ?	他们连布都没有。农村哪儿找那么多布，哪儿找那么多水给洗？	They don’t even have cloth! In the countryside where are you going to find so much cloth and so much water to wash it?
24		Féng yīgè kǒudài	缝一个口袋	Sew together a sack
25		Féng yīge kǒudài, bǎ zhèi shāzi dōu gěi shāi gānjìng le, bié yǒu zhāde dōngxi shénme shénmede, bǎ zhèi shātǔ zhuāng de zhèi kǒudài lǐtou.	缝一个口袋,把这沙子都给筛干净了，别有扎的东西什么什么的，把这沙土装的这口袋里头。	(They) sew together a sack and sift out some clean sand so there’s nothing in it that can poke, then they put the sand into the sack.
26		Bǎ xiǎohár, bǎ xiǎohár zhuāng zài zhèi shātǔ lǐbiānr, dāngrán bùshì shàngbiānr shì shuō xiàbianr ràng tā lā niào le, zhè xiàbian zhe	把小孩儿，把小孩儿装在这沙土里边儿，当然不是上边儿是说下边儿让他拉尿了，这下边这…	Put the kid into the middle of the sand, of course not over the top, I mean on the kid’s bottom and let them poop or pee inside.
27		gěi tā fàng zài — zhuāng zhèi dàizi lǐbiānr. Ránhòu xiǎohár ne shì lā shì niào dōu zài zhèi tǔ lǐbiānr.	给他放在——装这袋子里边儿。然后小孩儿呢是拉是尿都在这土里边儿。	Put them in this sack. Then the kid’s poop and pee all goes into the sand.
28		Ránhòu ne, tā huílai yíhòu tā gěi — bǎ zhèi tǔ gěi dàole, huàn.	然后呢，他回来以后他给–把这土给到了，换。	And then, when he (the farmer) comes back he — he dumps out the sand, changes it.

Language-wise, the dialog conforms closely to the BJSLBC™ as expected:

1. érhuàyīn [儿化音 = er-ization / rhoticization] pops up in lots of places and (for example) is essentially obligatory in line 14’s yīkuàir (一块儿) — does any Mandarin speaker say yīkuài with no érhuàyīn in this situation? Maybe Southerners?
2. zhèi and nèi all over the place for 这 and 那, starting in line 3
3. some elided consonants here and there, for example the sh in line 17’s jiùshì.

The studio researchers found themselves baffled by the writing of gāder (line 14). It’s not an uncommon word here in Beijing-land, but it seems to defy easy hanzification. Neither the ABC Dictionary from Pleco nor NCIKU (thanks, Sinosplice, for the explication on that name) offered obvious answers. One informant suggested 旮打儿, but with Google turning up only two unique results for “旮打儿”, it seems likely there must be a different spelling [although one of the examples has "一个冰旮打儿" / yīgè bīng gāder, i.e. a chunk of ice, which seems like the right idea]. And of course the Pinyin is up for grabs too, since érhuàyīn means that there are a number of spelling possibilities: gādengr, gādingr, gādar… As always, information leading to the arrest and conviction of the appropriate hanzi gets you entered into a drawing for a full studio tour, toilet paper included.

[UPDATE: 疙瘩儿 appears to be pretty standard for gāder (which would make the Pinyin gādar) according to NCIKU et al. Thanks Tae and others. See discussion in comments below]

And if you can snag a photo of a real sand diaper? Heck, that’ll get you a full meal at the world-famous YU cafeteria.