Uncle Salt Fish
Perils of ordering meals in Mandarin
The Chinese language comprises of more than 50,000 characters. While that is a large number, many users get by knowing a smaller subset of that pool of charactersi read that a knowledge of 2,500 to 3,500 characters can ensure a smooth journey through a Chinese language environment. It is a beautiful language with a strong emphasis on building a descriptive narrative rather than an efficient and succinct method of communication.
In the English language, chaining together a series of letters creates a word with its own meaning. Phonetics drawn from the letters help determine the way the word is pronounced. Sounding words out can help users say the word even if they do not understand what it means. This general logic is applicable, to a certain extent, to any language that utilise the same set of letters.
When it comes to pronouncing Chinese words, we have a similar cheat sheet which help readers say the word. Because many Chinese characters are a compound of different root characters, it possible at times to rely on the pronunciation of one of those characters we recognise to infer the way to pronounce the character. This method has saved me in the past. While I might not get the tone of the character correct, it is at least close enough to help me get by. However, this was not the case earlier in the week.
I went to the Chinese restaurant by work to order a meal for lunch. I read the menu on the blackboard and thought the idea of 椒盐鱼 Salt and Pepper fish sounded fantastic. Even though I could not remember how to pronounce the first character 椒, I know it means pepper and I recognised 盐 and 鱼 which is Salt and Fish respectively. The pepper character is built using two root characters 木(wood) and 叔 (uncle). I decided to apply the same pronunciation approach, pronouncing only main character and hope for the life of me that it approximates how the actual character sounds like.
As you might expect or know, 叔 (uncle) pronouced as "Shu" is not how 椒 (pepper) is pronounced. It is also not "mu" for 木(wood) either. It is in fact pronounced "Jiao". Of course, I know that "Jiao" means pepper. So why did I then decide to ask the wait staff for "Shu Yan Yu" - Uncle Salt Fish? I know I messed up the moment the girl behind the counter screwed her face up, tilt her head to one side and repeated "Shu Yan Yu"?
I was totally embarrassed. The up side was that the dish tasted good.
Scenes from a Auckland City street corner around 630am.
