Our Desk | Fun Mandarin 2: Ròu, Tāng, Bāo

Julie Zhu

Today marks the second day of fun mandarin series. Fun mandarin series serves only for entertainment purposes.
肉Ròu: red and soft tissues in human or animal bodies, flesh, meat, muscle; captive of a kidnap; the edible part of a fruit; when fruit is not brittle nor crisp; slow-moving, slow-tempered; very intimate and affectionate way of calling someone, mostly used to call children; in ancient times, meant the side of a circle. 肉 groups flesh of any living creature. However, historical translators decided to match this Chinese character with the English word meat. Whenever a Chinese native speaker learns English in a place hardly influenced by English or western culture, which is not the case of Macau or Hong Kong, that Chinese speaker will naturally refer to any flesh coming from a living animal as meat, which includes chicken, fish, salmon, lamb, turkey, to name just a few. The way of grouping, sorting, and differentiate subjects reflects a different reasoning method and logic of my ancestors.
鱼yú (fish) 肉 means fish. 鸡jī (chicken) 肉 means chicken. 牛niú 肉 means beef. 鸭yā (duck)肉 means duck. 羊yáng (lamb) 肉 means lamb.
蟹xiè (crab) 肉 means crab. There are many more examples.
Similar to 肉, a Chinese character which is translated as ‘soup’ is also controversial.
汤tāng: hot water, a liquid used for cooking, cooked food which contains a large dose of broth; spring; liquid Chinese medicine; a surname. 汤 is commonly known as ‘soup’ among mandarin speakers, who assign to 汤 the verb ‘to drink’. Hence, mandarin speakers drink the soup, which suggests that the substance being drank is liquid, like water. 汤 is the course of food served on the dining table of my people for purposes similar to those of soup, something people eat. 羹gēng, in mandarin, is the kind of food mostly boiled into a mushy status, with mandarins speakers eating 羹. In this case, 羹 is actually the most accurate and precise Chinese word for depicting ‘soup’, for example, congee.
The third controversial or verbal-war-inducing word is 包bāo.
包bāo: using paper, clothing or other thin material to wrap something; that which is wrapped; bag; including; fully responsible and fully covered; guarantee; chartered; surrounding; a kind of food made with flour containing fillings; surname.
叉chā 烧shāo 包 is one of the most famous Cantonese food among mandarin speakers, one which probably everybody living in Macau knows about. But what else is there about 包?
包bāo, fundamentally translated and known as ‘bread’ by mandarin speakers, has an interesting twist to it. When a mandarin speaker says the English word ‘bread’, that person is most likely referring to food items inside a bakery, including, for instance, toasts or croissants. In Chinese,
包bāo is more relevant to a shape, not the ingredients. Very often, we hear a Chinese speaker say “I like that bread” when, in fact, that person is talking about a chocolate filled croissant. In this case, ‘bread’ refers to the shape. 核桃 (walnut)包 means walnut cake. 芝士 (cream cheese) 包 means cream cheese cake. On the other hand, ‘cake’ refers to those colorful cakes we see typically stored and displayed inside a glass fridge.