Change

I needed an excuse to publish this photo. It was taken in Shenzhen (naturally) in what used to be an excellent little forest just across the square from the train station but which is now shaved down to the bare trunks. People probably got up to all sorts in that little forest

And it was in Shenzhen the other day that I had an epiphany. No, that’s not right. I should say, another reminder of how deeply different from English the Cantonese language is.

In my lessons I often use the example of ‘take’ to illustrate this. In Chinese, take medicine, take someone to a party, take a taxi and take that you bastard! are all different words. Why? Because they have completely different meanings! If you tried to take a taxi like you take medicine, there’d be one hell of a kerfuffle! You’d wear your teeth (or arse) down and the lacquer would quickly rust.

Take. When you think about it, is it natural to use one word to describe about 200 vastly different actions?

I hadn’t thought of ‘take’ for a while when I went to Shenzhen to pick up two pairs of shorts. But next to my tailor’s I saw a sign that made me think deeply about English again. It said in English ‘Change Shirt’. （改衫 goi saam) Yes! 改 does mean change and 衫, I suppose, ‘shirt’. (But in Cantonese it normally means ‘clothes’). So was it a changing room where people could change out of their old and awful shirts/clothes? No, it meant ‘alterations’.

Change is change, right? Wrong. Change money, change trains, change into not the man I married, change direction, keep the change – all vastly different in Chinese because of the different meaning. That’s important to keep in mind. But will you? Or will you insist on Chinese changing to become more like English?

By the way, my Cantonese course has slightly changed direction! I’m now doing lessons on Skype.