It was sometime right before lunch yesterday when I received Mike’s SMS invitation for dinner at his house that night. As a committed practitioner of SMS RSVP etiquette, I politely asked him if he needed me to bring anything. The following is a rather embarrassing account of our exchange, embarrassing primarily because, in hindsight, it’s not the language of a very mature and sophisticated person:
Mike: I’m making steak and mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐). Bring whatever you think complements that
Me: I’ll bring over some 米饭 (white rice).
Mike: Haha, thanks man. I think I can take care of that.
Me: How about 纸巾 (napkins).
Mike: How about some 鲍鱼.
Now, 鲍鱼 means abalone, which is a very high-priced seafood delicacy in Chinese cuisine. My natural interpretation of his message was that he was humoring me by following my lead down to the depths of idiotic banter. Basically, he was saying to me: “Ok, if you want to be cheap and bring things that are worth nothing, then I’ll suggest you bring over something that’s worth a ton.”
Imagine my surprise when, after showing the message to Lydia, she chuckled and said: “That means you have to bring more girls!” It was, at the time, a comment that made no sense to me in any dimension at all. Seeing my confusion, she asked: “You do know what that means, don’t you?”
“鲍鱼? It means abalone, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s also a slang term for a girl’s, you know…”
“What?”
“Um…down there.”
What the hell was going on? How could I have instigated one completely juvenile dialogue, only to be embroiled in another one involving subtle references to female genitalia.
And wait a sec, female genitalia? Abalone is supposed to be another term for female genitalia? In what world could this possibly be true? In this day and age, how is it believable that people would use seafood as representations of the truly holy?
Oh yeah, forgot. Men usually come up with these things. Makes sense now.
A truly educational post
So how would you say “abalone” in Mandarin?