Barak¡¯s moss green eyes widened with surprise and joy. ¡°How come there is a saying for everything in Chinese!¡± he exclaimed.
Barak is quite talented linguistically. He had studied Chinese in Taiwan for only three months before he mastered the five tones of Mandarin Chinese. His pronunciation is so precise that when he speaks, he can almost pass as a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese for the first few moments.
It¡¯s a pity that he hasn¡¯t had time to continue learning Chinese and reach a more sophisticated level of the language. Barak asked me to teach him some useful Chinese idioms, hoping to improve his vocabulary.
Barak is a perfectionist, and every time he writes a document, he keeps on revising it, as if he would never finish. Watching him struggling, I once advised him to simply complete the work in time, and not to ¡°draw the feet of a snake¡±.
I told him a story about how several Chu people from the Warring States Period of ancient China had competed to draw snakes on the ground with bamboo sticks in order to determine who would get to drink the last cup of wine on the table. Seeing that the others were still occupied with their half-done snakes, the one who had finished drawing first gloated and decided to add a pair of feet to his snake. He ended up losing.
Barak laughed and said that he understood what I meant. ¡°We say -- mow the lawn, in English,¡± he said, pushing an imaginary mower in circles on the carpet.
One day, Barak hung up the phone and started to vent his frustration with the impossibly stubborn person he had just spoken to. ¡°It was like talking to the wall for the past hour.¡± ¡°So you were playing music to a bull,¡± I paraphrased. Barak was again amused, and amazed at how Chinese expressions could turn such an exasperating situation into poetry and art.
The phrase is a real clich¨¦ in Chinese. However in the way Barak interpreted it, it seemed indeed an idyllic depiction - a shepherd boy plays the flute to an old bull on green grassland, the bull slowly chewing its grass, and pieces of white cloud floating in the blue sky.
As he learns more, Barak has become creative with some Chinese idioms. ¡°The Beauty Trap is the best choice of the Thirty Six Militaristic Strategies¡± - this is a proverb slightly modified by Barak. The original top choice is ¡°fleeing¡±. He justifies his modification by saying that it¡¯s men¡¯s nature. He also claims to be the ¡°slow bird¡± at home, because ¡°the slow bird flies first.¡± So he enjoys certain privileges such as reading the latest Business Week first and telling his new jokes before I tell mine.
Barak injured his back playing basketball many years ago. This injury suddenly surfaced a while ago as an excruciating pain, which semi-paralyzed him on the floor for three days. Every time he moved, he felt a sharp blade cutting at his spine. While he was lying on the floor, all domestic responsibilities fell on my shoulders. Barak said apologetically to me, ¡°I really became the slowest bird this time, can¡¯t fly now.¡±
I consoled him with a saying by a Chinese philosopher, Mencius (372-289 BC). ¡°When one is destined by Heaven to achieve greatness, he has to first suffer sorrow in his heart and pain in his body,¡± the philosopher said. Barak is usually cheered up when he hears the words of ancient Chinese philosophers such as Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius, and Mencius.
Last month my father visited us. I got up one morning hearing Barak striking up a conversation in Chinese with my father. Barak told my father that people from the bank started to treat him more nicely now since the business of his firm grew. They didn¡¯t care too much about him when his firm had just started its business. Now he has become their VIP.
My father took the opportunity to teach Barak a couple of new idioms ¨C ¡°friends who only dine and wine with you¡± versus ¡°friends made in adversity.¡± The snobs from the bank obviously could not even count as ¡°dine-and-wine friends,¡± but ¡°who is your friend in adversity?¡± I couldn¡¯t help interjecting. I worried that my father had confused Barak with many fancy Chinese phrases.
¡°It¡¯s you,¡± Barak said, catching me by surprise. Something warm rose up towards my nose momentarily, perhaps a clog of tough times we had been through, choking in my throat. I didn¡¯t feel comfortable revealing too much emotion in front of my father, so I patted Barak¡¯s hand and said, ¡°You silly, I am your wife!¡±
