Category Archives: Anecdotes

Mar 24 2013
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Anecdotes

Addressing waiters/waitresses at a Chinese restaurant

I was having dinner with work colleagues (all native mainland Chinese) last night at a Chinese restaurant when I raised the question about how to address the waitress. Several methods were brought up:

  1. 小姐

    This one was probably the most controversial. The ‘little older sister’ method was brought up by one person (a male from south of China) but another (a female from the north of China) said that this was terribly inappropriate, as these days the term is taken to mean ‘prostitute’ and therefore not a very respectful thing to say. Obviously this term can’t be used for male waiters.

  2. 服务员

    I suggested this one and a couple of people agreed this was a good method. However, another person thought that it was much too formal, and would not be used in actual spoken conversation.

  3. 你好

    A compromise that everyone seemed happy with was to skirt the issue entirely by just calling them over by saying ‘hello’.

I’ll see if I can ask my tutor get her opinion on this. What other methods (good or bad) have you heard used?

Update: My tutor (female from Shanghai) said that 小姐 (or 先生 for male waiters) is what you would use at a nice restaurant (as they usually have young, attractive waitstaff). In a less fancy/café setting, you would tend to use 服务员, and they tend to use this more in the north of China. In the restaurant context, 小姐 would never be taken to mean ‘prostitute’, so isn’t inappropriate.

Update 2 (2014-02-20): DigMandarin has posted an excellent article on addressing people in Chinese, which is far more comprehensive.

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Mar 10 2013
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Anecdotes

Shanghai in the 1920s

Today I came across some amazing photos from China in the 1920s and 1930s. The curator of these photos, Vincent Messelier-Gouze, says:

“In 1919, my 18-year-old grandfather, Louis-Philippe Messelier, left his hometown in France for China. Living in Shanghai, he juggled his career in the wool trade with his photography as a journalist for the French Journal of Shanghai.”

Here are some of my favourites:

 

It’s fascinating to see real photos from a time when China was not as westernised as it is today. Make sure you check out the full post for more!

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Mar 01 2013
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Anecdotes

Chinese jokes in Shaun Micallef’s “Mad as Hell”

Sometimes learning another language provides unexpected benefits, such as getting a joke that would otherwise pass you by.

Tonight I was watching episode one in season two of a TV show called Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell (Wikipedia, IMDB), which is a news-style comedy. As the show was starting, some Chinese text briefly appeared at the bottom of the screen:

Chinese joke in 'Mad As Hell'
The text reads “你好 我在中国军队的朋友们” or “Hello my friends in the Chinese army”. I found this funny because it appears to be a reference to two things:

I really like shows that are packed full of jokes, where you almost have to work to get them all. Kudos to Shaun and his team!

Update (2014-02-23)

In Season 3, Episode 2 Shaun is interviewing his Mad as Hell “Asia Service” correspondent from Beijing ‘Bronda Sen’ about recent unprecedented Chinese war games occurring in the Indian Ocean, when he aggravates her and she starts yelling. The ‘feed’ is then cut off and the following test card shown instead:

Another Chinese joke in 'Mad as Hell'

Fortunately for most viewers, an English translation is provided (“Forbidden broadcast transmission terminated”). The Chinese text is “故宮廣播傳輸終止“. This actually translates to something like “Forbidden City broadcast transmission termination”.

There are several curiosities with this.

  • The text is in traditional characters, but we all know that mainland China uses simplified characters. The equivalent in simplified is “故宫广播传输终止“. This is extra curious because the previous Chinese joke from an earlier episode (see above) uses simplified characters.
  • The meaning between the English and the Chinese is different. The English translation is saying that the broadcast is prohibited and has been stopped. The Chinese translation is simply saying that the broadcast (apparently from the Forbidden City) is being stopped. I don’t think there’s an implication that the broadcast itself is prohibited.

I’m not sure if the differences are intentional or if my analysis of the meanings are correct. Perhaps it just gives us an insight into a late change made to the joke.

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