A picture is worth a thousand words – even we writers often have to admit that. This becomes very clear with the works of the Beijing artist Brother Nut. He draws attention to China’s environmental and climate issues with creative projects such as a brick pressed together from smog. In doing so, he creates impressive imagery that will probably be remembered longer than numerous written descriptions of the climate and ecological problems.
Renxiu Zhao spoke with Brother Nut about how economic growth in recent decades has often been achieved at the expense of the environment. It robs people of drinking water and contaminates the soil on which people are supposed to make a living. Desperation is often the result. Because the victims of environmental pollution are seldom heard by authorities. The public often remains unaware of the problems in other parts of the country. But since the climate crisis also affects all Chinese, the government will hardly be able to look the other way on ecological and climate problems in the future.
In the meantime, the United States and China have reached an agreement on the trade policy front. US auditors will be granted limited access to the balance sheets of Chinese companies. In return, they will be allowed to remain listed on the New York Stock Exchange. But this outcome remains unsatisfactory for Chinese companies, writes our team in Beijing. They do not want to reveal their cards. So the trend to abandon New York and return to home exchanges like Hong Kong remains unbroken.
In July, you launched the “Telephone booth for help” project in Beijing, where you transformed an ordinary telephone booth into a “hotline” for victims of environmental pollution in the city of Huludao in the province of Liaoning. The phone booth allowed those affected to share their suffering with strangers in China’s capital city. How did you come up with this idea?
Problems are generally solved “top-down” in China. There are channels such as the 12345 hotline, which connects those affected with local authorities, and more specialized channels like the National Supervisory Commission. But just like in many places around the world, pleas for help are either intentionally or accidentally ignored. The pollution problem in Huludao, Liaoning province, is a very serious pollution problem that covers a huge population and has lasted for a long time, and the local people have been complaining about it to the 12345 hotline for years, but it has never been taken seriously by the local government. With the “Telephone booth for help” we have tried to carry the muffled voices of this small northeastern town into the parallel world of the capital. There, the people hear and feel the cries for help, the pain at the other end of the line – and suddenly they are no longer distant problems.
How was the feedback by the public?
Some Internet users reported that people on the other end of the line were distraught. For example, because their social media accounts were restricted and the authorities denied responsibility. One elderly man explained, “We feel trapped, like in a cage.” Callers included young parents who keep their doors and windows closed because they are concerned for the safety of their four-year-old child, who often gets nosebleeds. One woman was summoned by police for an interview after she called the environmental protection department. The anguish of being unable to speak out and pleading for help in vain overwhelmed me during this time I wanted to flee the phone booth myself.
Did the project raise the attention of the relevant authorities in Huludao and was something finally done about the problem?
“Telephone booth for help” has been shared on Weibo about 30,000 times. The local government held two press conferences within half a month by now, and the polluting enterprises have stopped production for rectification. The city government has ordered more than 90 experts, law enforcement and monitoring teams from other regions to Huludao to conduct investigations. However, there is no concrete investigation report or solution yet. Residents and netizens are still waiting for a genuine and sincere solution from the city government.
What made you deal with environmental issues as an artist?
The projects I have realized over the last few years have mostly revolved around acute emergencies. Economic growth at the expense of the environment and the shift of pollution from structurally strong to structurally weak areas, from the coast to the inland, as well as legacy pollution, have led to a multitude of crises. For example, there are places where water pollution has caused cancers among the local population and the death of cattle and sheep. Such problems need to be solved urgently. Trying to solve real social problems is the basic goal of this series of projects.
What do you see as China’s biggest problem in environmental protection?
The biggest problem is the top-down model of environmental governance – objectively speaking, China’s great achievements in environmental protection over the years are inseparable from this model of vigorous and miraculous governance. But under this kind of environmental governance, the monitoring power of the public and the media is too weak. For example, official figures also show that nearly one-fifth of China’s arable land is contaminated with heavy metals, a much more serious problem than smog, which can only be remedied very slowly. Exactly where this pollution is concentrated, however, remains often hidden from the public. In 2021, the Ministry of Ecology and Environmental Protection conducted a survey of the soil pollution potential of nearly 15,000 companies and found that nearly 70 percent of them had more or less pollution potential. However, which companies these are is also not disclosed, and cannot be monitored by the public and the media.
Why is there such strong resistance to environmental activism, even though it serves the country and its people?
In some economically weak regions, environmental protection is not only an economic issue, but also a political one. In China, economically developed provinces tend to do a much better job of environmental protection than economically backward regions and are more willing to accept public scrutiny. Once pollution problems are identified, the companies involved are also likely to be investigated and the local officials involved are likely to be punished. This also results in the relevant enterprises and local governments being very nervous once the pollution problem is exposed.
The space for free speech in China is getting more and more restricted. A movement like Fridays for future, which gathers in large numbers on the street, is impossible. How can environmentalists still have an impact in China?
As far as I know, there are still many NGOs working silently in China and participating in promoting many environmental changes, including afforestation, pollution monitoring, carbon emission, etc. Their work is very important. The floods, droughts and high temperatures that have increased in China in recent years, make the global climate crisis no longer an abstract concept for us. At the same time, the pandemic has made people more aware of social problems. The climate crisis has really affected this generation, everyone in China’s first-tier cities, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing. These cities are full of residents and young people who care about public affairs. Most often, of course, they are mainly active on Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, and Bilibili, where they express their dissatisfaction with the climate crisis and demand change.
You walk a fine line with your art. Are you sometimes afraid that your work might be banned?
This risk is indeed there, there is a big difference between what is possible in China and what is possible in Germany. I don’t have a strategy, I don’t know how long I can do all this. At some point, I may not be able to speak or do anything. While talking to local authorities, someone once said to my face, “artists are all scum”. Perhaps I should teach two parrots this phrase so they can take turns reciting it at a future exhibition. These people think I only caused trouble for them. But at the same time, I am an artist who solves social problems and an environmentalist who is committed to exposing environmental problems. Maybe they can prove their cultural diversity and tolerance by tolerating someone like me.
Brother Nut 坚果兄弟 is an internationally known artist from Beijing who draws attention to ecological problems with public activism. His best-known work is “Project Dust” from 2015, in which he shaped a brick from fine dust particles in Beijing’s heavily polluted air.
In collaboration with Fabian Peltsch
“The negative image of China has made my work more difficult,” says Nora Frisch. With the books published by her Drachenhaus publishing house, the sinologist, who was educated in Vienna, Beijing, Taipei and Heidelberg, actually wants to present China’s diversity outside the realm of economics and politics – a diversity that is unfortunately often neglected in current debates. “China is full of individual fates that you just can’t throw into one pot.” The program of her publishing house, founded in 2010, is accordingly wide-ranging: It includes novels, history books, graphic novels, children’s books and cookbooks, as well as classics of Chinese philosophy such as Lin Yutang’s “My Country and My People” from 1935. “Since then, the Chinese mentality has never been described so intensively and in such detail as in Lin Yutang’s work,” explains Frisch. And that hasn’t changed much, despite China’s economic boom. “That makes his books still relevant.”
The idea to start a publishing house for books came to Frisch after she earned her doctorate. At first, she wanted to found a school to pass on her knowledge of China and the Chinese language. “A kind of Confucius Institute,” she explains. Her husband eventually convinced her to go in a different direction. “He said, ‘The most you’ll reach with that is people within a ten-kilometer radius.’ Why don’t you do the whole thing in book form?”
The first book Frisch published at Drachenhaus was “Der Bau der großen Mauer” (“The Building of the Great Wall”), in which historian Cornelia Hermanns provides an overview of the background and creation of what is perhaps China’s most famous structure. “In the meantime, the book is also used as teaching material in schools and universities,” Frisch says proudly. Her favorite book in the publishing portfolio, however, is “Libellenaugen” (“Dragonfly Eyes”), a coming-of-age novel set during the Cultural Revolution. It was written by Cao Wenxuan, a professor of Chinese literature and children’s literature at Peking University, who also used it to come to terms with his own youth. “The story touched me,” Frisch says. “I fell in love with the author’s language. Cao really rolls out linguistic flower carpets before you.”
Frisch only includes books in the portfolio that appeal to her. In the early days of the publishing house, she informed herself about new releases at book fairs and on Internet forums. But that wasn’t always easy. When she went looking for crime novels at a fair in Beijing, for example, she was told that there were no crimes in China. “I didn’t get very far,” she says, laughing. Today, it’s easier; Frisch receives active offers for Chinese books. “I just can’t say no to many titles, even though I’m actually at full capacity.”
Reading books sometimes replaces intercultural training sessions, believes Frisch, who translates many books from China herself. Through her publishing work, she also repeatedly gained insights into the censorship apparatus of the People’s Republic. Chinese publishers often tried to exert influence on her publications. She was even forbidden to publish “Libellenaugen” unless she made some changes. And this was despite the fact that she had already acquired the license and translated the book.
The publishers wanted a different version for the international audience. “The parts that needed to be changed were very simple,” she recalls. There was a scene, for example, where a grandmother gets her head shaved. She then asks a Red Guard girl for her red scarf to cover her head. “However, in the changes that the Chinese side demanded, the girl went up to the old woman to hand her the scarf. Little things like that were objected to,” Frisch says.
In other cases, the Chinese only wanted to grant her a license if she also included Xi Jinping’s works in the program. Here, as with “Libellenaugen,” she did not comply with the requests. “I try to preserve my independence by all means.” Fabian Peltsch
“May I kiss you?” This phrase is one of the running gags among Chinese learners (and teachers) when teaching the basics of Chinese pronunciation. As is well known, Chinese is a tonal language, which means that raising and lowering the voice according to certain patterns is relevant to meaning. So if you mess up the innocent contact phrase 请问 qǐng wèn “May I ask you something?” (literally, “please ask”) suddenly turns into an accidental flirt attempt, namely 请吻 qǐng wěn “May I kiss you?” (“please kiss”).
So much for theory – and the entertainment in the classroom. In fact, there have been no reports of unwarranted advances in China caused by pronunciation handicaps. Of course, language is always interpreted in context. And so, fortunately, native speakers usually graciously filter out awkward pronunciations on our part.
Still, it must be said: Chinese pronunciation really has its pitfalls for Western tongues! Before you know it, plans to go panda viewing in Sichuan have become plans to go chest hair viewing (看熊猫 kàn xióngmāo vs. 看胸毛 kàn xiōngmáo). Or declaring “going to stand in line” (去排队 qù páiduì) instead of “going to party” (去派对 qù pàiduì) a popular hipster pastime in Germany. And surely some China tourists have melancholically ordered a “ticket towards injury” (伤害 shānghài) at the ticket counter and, of course, still ended up in Shanghai (上海 Shànghǎi).
The reason for the pronunciation confusion: While we can assemble our syllables almost arbitrarily from the alphabet’s letter toolbox into countless variants, the Chinese only know a fixed set of initial and final sounds and thus also only a limited number of syllables, namely around 400. And from this admittedly somewhat thin pool of syllables, all words must ultimately be pieced together. Many words thus look identical or at least almost identical in the Pinyin phonetic transcription – an important crutch especially for us as learners of foreign languages – so they differ at most by their phonetic progression.
Notorious in this context, by the way, are also tone exercises from Chinese lessons, which play with changes of meaning with intonation changes. Above all, the classic: The horse scolded by the mother (妈妈骂马吗？ Māma mà mǎ ma? “Does the mother scold the horse?”). But such syllable sequences are a dime a dozen. For example, the little word “mi” can mean “rice,” “honey,” “fan,” or simply “meow!” depending on the emphasis. And with the syllable “bao”, the listener only knows whether a “bag”, a “leopard”, “instead of” or “thin” is meant if the speaker catches the right tone.
The good news is, as mentioned before, the context of the conversation usually saves us! After all, very few people travel to Sichuan to marvel at chest hair (at most at that of pandas, perhaps). The only problem for language learners is when two “pronunciation twins” are in the same word field or are semantically related in some way. Then the risk is that they are equally plausible in a certain context. This means that genuine misunderstandings are bound to happen.
After all, there is some difference whether you tell your fund manager to buy (买 mǎi) or sell (卖 mài) a stock, whether your company branch is located in Shanxi (山西 Shānxī) or Shaanxi (陕西 Shǎnxī) province, whether you ask the stewardess for a glass (杯子 bēizi) or a blanket (被子 bèizi) on the plane, and whether you book a Chinese (汉语 Hànyǔ) or Korean (韩语 Hányǔ) course at a language school.
Was the blind date a disaster because the guy was simply not presentable (丑 chǒu “ugly”) or because he smelled unpleasant (臭 chòu “stink”)? Does your new friend have a lot of cats (猫 māo) or a lot of body hair (毛 máo)? And have you watched three seasons (季 jì) of your new favorite Netflix show this weekend, or just three episodes (集 jí)?
The Chinese themselves, on the other hand, are not intimidated by the myriad of consonants. On the contrary. As native speakers, they not only stride lightly over the phonetic piano, they have even declared the play with multiple and double meanings to be a small national sport.
Puns with homophones (谐音xiéyīn – “homophone”) have a centuries-old tradition in Chinese-speaking countries and are still popular today. In recent years, China’s rising comedy scene has coined the popular term 谐音梗 xiéyīngěng (“play-on-words, phonetic gag”), a dry form of humor that is not only used in entertainment formats, but also has found its way into social networks and coffee break conversations. On the Internet, homophones are also considered a popular trick to circumvent various censorship filters. Here, for example, sensitive terms (敏感词 mǐngǎncí) are simply replaced by harmless characters that sound the same or similar. This way, the reader knows the meaning, but the machine does not.
But sometimes, even meticulous pronunciation preparation and last-minute phonetics training are of no help. Because there are simply some words in Chinese that sound completely identical. For example, I recently caused a stir at a Beijing police station when I asked for an extension of my “detention card” (jūliúzhèng). But all I wanted was to apply for a new issue of my residence permit. Unfortunately, jūliú means both “detention” (拘留) and “residence” (居留). To distinguish the corresponding paper, the little word 许可 xǔkě “permit” is therefore added in the case of “residence permit” as a precautionary measure (居留许可证 jūliúxǔkězhèng), which I, unfortunately, had forgotten. Fortunately, the misunderstanding could be resolved quickly. And so I am writing this column behind a desk, not behind bars.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
A picture is worth a thousand words – even we writers often have to admit that. This becomes very clear with the works of the Beijing artist Brother Nut. He draws attention to China’s environmental and climate issues with creative projects such as a brick pressed together from smog. In doing so, he creates impressive imagery that will probably be remembered longer than numerous written descriptions of the climate and ecological problems.
Renxiu Zhao spoke with Brother Nut about how economic growth in recent decades has often been achieved at the expense of the environment. It robs people of drinking water and contaminates the soil on which people are supposed to make a living. Desperation is often the result. Because the victims of environmental pollution are seldom heard by authorities. The public often remains unaware of the problems in other parts of the country. But since the climate crisis also affects all Chinese, the government will hardly be able to look the other way on ecological and climate problems in the future.
In the meantime, the United States and China have reached an agreement on the trade policy front. US auditors will be granted limited access to the balance sheets of Chinese companies. In return, they will be allowed to remain listed on the New York Stock Exchange. But this outcome remains unsatisfactory for Chinese companies, writes our team in Beijing. They do not want to reveal their cards. So the trend to abandon New York and return to home exchanges like Hong Kong remains unbroken.
In July, you launched the “Telephone booth for help” project in Beijing, where you transformed an ordinary telephone booth into a “hotline” for victims of environmental pollution in the city of Huludao in the province of Liaoning. The phone booth allowed those affected to share their suffering with strangers in China’s capital city. How did you come up with this idea?
Problems are generally solved “top-down” in China. There are channels such as the 12345 hotline, which connects those affected with local authorities, and more specialized channels like the National Supervisory Commission. But just like in many places around the world, pleas for help are either intentionally or accidentally ignored. The pollution problem in Huludao, Liaoning province, is a very serious pollution problem that covers a huge population and has lasted for a long time, and the local people have been complaining about it to the 12345 hotline for years, but it has never been taken seriously by the local government. With the “Telephone booth for help” we have tried to carry the muffled voices of this small northeastern town into the parallel world of the capital. There, the people hear and feel the cries for help, the pain at the other end of the line – and suddenly they are no longer distant problems.
How was the feedback by the public?
Some Internet users reported that people on the other end of the line were distraught. For example, because their social media accounts were restricted and the authorities denied responsibility. One elderly man explained, “We feel trapped, like in a cage.” Callers included young parents who keep their doors and windows closed because they are concerned for the safety of their four-year-old child, who often gets nosebleeds. One woman was summoned by police for an interview after she called the environmental protection department. The anguish of being unable to speak out and pleading for help in vain overwhelmed me during this time I wanted to flee the phone booth myself.
Did the project raise the attention of the relevant authorities in Huludao and was something finally done about the problem?
“Telephone booth for help” has been shared on Weibo about 30,000 times. The local government held two press conferences within half a month by now, and the polluting enterprises have stopped production for rectification. The city government has ordered more than 90 experts, law enforcement and monitoring teams from other regions to Huludao to conduct investigations. However, there is no concrete investigation report or solution yet. Residents and netizens are still waiting for a genuine and sincere solution from the city government.
What made you deal with environmental issues as an artist?
The projects I have realized over the last few years have mostly revolved around acute emergencies. Economic growth at the expense of the environment and the shift of pollution from structurally strong to structurally weak areas, from the coast to the inland, as well as legacy pollution, have led to a multitude of crises. For example, there are places where water pollution has caused cancers among the local population and the death of cattle and sheep. Such problems need to be solved urgently. Trying to solve real social problems is the basic goal of this series of projects.
What do you see as China’s biggest problem in environmental protection?
The biggest problem is the top-down model of environmental governance – objectively speaking, China’s great achievements in environmental protection over the years are inseparable from this model of vigorous and miraculous governance. But under this kind of environmental governance, the monitoring power of the public and the media is too weak. For example, official figures also show that nearly one-fifth of China’s arable land is contaminated with heavy metals, a much more serious problem than smog, which can only be remedied very slowly. Exactly where this pollution is concentrated, however, remains often hidden from the public. In 2021, the Ministry of Ecology and Environmental Protection conducted a survey of the soil pollution potential of nearly 15,000 companies and found that nearly 70 percent of them had more or less pollution potential. However, which companies these are is also not disclosed, and cannot be monitored by the public and the media.
Why is there such strong resistance to environmental activism, even though it serves the country and its people?
In some economically weak regions, environmental protection is not only an economic issue, but also a political one. In China, economically developed provinces tend to do a much better job of environmental protection than economically backward regions and are more willing to accept public scrutiny. Once pollution problems are identified, the companies involved are also likely to be investigated and the local officials involved are likely to be punished. This also results in the relevant enterprises and local governments being very nervous once the pollution problem is exposed.
The space for free speech in China is getting more and more restricted. A movement like Fridays for future, which gathers in large numbers on the street, is impossible. How can environmentalists still have an impact in China?
As far as I know, there are still many NGOs working silently in China and participating in promoting many environmental changes, including afforestation, pollution monitoring, carbon emission, etc. Their work is very important. The floods, droughts and high temperatures that have increased in China in recent years, make the global climate crisis no longer an abstract concept for us. At the same time, the pandemic has made people more aware of social problems. The climate crisis has really affected this generation, everyone in China’s first-tier cities, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing. These cities are full of residents and young people who care about public affairs. Most often, of course, they are mainly active on Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, and Bilibili, where they express their dissatisfaction with the climate crisis and demand change.
You walk a fine line with your art. Are you sometimes afraid that your work might be banned?
This risk is indeed there, there is a big difference between what is possible in China and what is possible in Germany. I don’t have a strategy, I don’t know how long I can do all this. At some point, I may not be able to speak or do anything. While talking to local authorities, someone once said to my face, “artists are all scum”. Perhaps I should teach two parrots this phrase so they can take turns reciting it at a future exhibition. These people think I only caused trouble for them. But at the same time, I am an artist who solves social problems and an environmentalist who is committed to exposing environmental problems. Maybe they can prove their cultural diversity and tolerance by tolerating someone like me.
Brother Nut 坚果兄弟 is an internationally known artist from Beijing who draws attention to ecological problems with public activism. His best-known work is “Project Dust” from 2015, in which he shaped a brick from fine dust particles in Beijing’s heavily polluted air.
In collaboration with Fabian Peltsch
“The negative image of China has made my work more difficult,” says Nora Frisch. With the books published by her Drachenhaus publishing house, the sinologist, who was educated in Vienna, Beijing, Taipei and Heidelberg, actually wants to present China’s diversity outside the realm of economics and politics – a diversity that is unfortunately often neglected in current debates. “China is full of individual fates that you just can’t throw into one pot.” The program of her publishing house, founded in 2010, is accordingly wide-ranging: It includes novels, history books, graphic novels, children’s books and cookbooks, as well as classics of Chinese philosophy such as Lin Yutang’s “My Country and My People” from 1935. “Since then, the Chinese mentality has never been described so intensively and in such detail as in Lin Yutang’s work,” explains Frisch. And that hasn’t changed much, despite China’s economic boom. “That makes his books still relevant.”
The idea to start a publishing house for books came to Frisch after she earned her doctorate. At first, she wanted to found a school to pass on her knowledge of China and the Chinese language. “A kind of Confucius Institute,” she explains. Her husband eventually convinced her to go in a different direction. “He said, ‘The most you’ll reach with that is people within a ten-kilometer radius.’ Why don’t you do the whole thing in book form?”
The first book Frisch published at Drachenhaus was “Der Bau der großen Mauer” (“The Building of the Great Wall”), in which historian Cornelia Hermanns provides an overview of the background and creation of what is perhaps China’s most famous structure. “In the meantime, the book is also used as teaching material in schools and universities,” Frisch says proudly. Her favorite book in the publishing portfolio, however, is “Libellenaugen” (“Dragonfly Eyes”), a coming-of-age novel set during the Cultural Revolution. It was written by Cao Wenxuan, a professor of Chinese literature and children’s literature at Peking University, who also used it to come to terms with his own youth. “The story touched me,” Frisch says. “I fell in love with the author’s language. Cao really rolls out linguistic flower carpets before you.”
Frisch only includes books in the portfolio that appeal to her. In the early days of the publishing house, she informed herself about new releases at book fairs and on Internet forums. But that wasn’t always easy. When she went looking for crime novels at a fair in Beijing, for example, she was told that there were no crimes in China. “I didn’t get very far,” she says, laughing. Today, it’s easier; Frisch receives active offers for Chinese books. “I just can’t say no to many titles, even though I’m actually at full capacity.”
Reading books sometimes replaces intercultural training sessions, believes Frisch, who translates many books from China herself. Through her publishing work, she also repeatedly gained insights into the censorship apparatus of the People’s Republic. Chinese publishers often tried to exert influence on her publications. She was even forbidden to publish “Libellenaugen” unless she made some changes. And this was despite the fact that she had already acquired the license and translated the book.
The publishers wanted a different version for the international audience. “The parts that needed to be changed were very simple,” she recalls. There was a scene, for example, where a grandmother gets her head shaved. She then asks a Red Guard girl for her red scarf to cover her head. “However, in the changes that the Chinese side demanded, the girl went up to the old woman to hand her the scarf. Little things like that were objected to,” Frisch says.
In other cases, the Chinese only wanted to grant her a license if she also included Xi Jinping’s works in the program. Here, as with “Libellenaugen,” she did not comply with the requests. “I try to preserve my independence by all means.” Fabian Peltsch
“May I kiss you?” This phrase is one of the running gags among Chinese learners (and teachers) when teaching the basics of Chinese pronunciation. As is well known, Chinese is a tonal language, which means that raising and lowering the voice according to certain patterns is relevant to meaning. So if you mess up the innocent contact phrase 请问 qǐng wèn “May I ask you something?” (literally, “please ask”) suddenly turns into an accidental flirt attempt, namely 请吻 qǐng wěn “May I kiss you?” (“please kiss”).
So much for theory – and the entertainment in the classroom. In fact, there have been no reports of unwarranted advances in China caused by pronunciation handicaps. Of course, language is always interpreted in context. And so, fortunately, native speakers usually graciously filter out awkward pronunciations on our part.
Still, it must be said: Chinese pronunciation really has its pitfalls for Western tongues! Before you know it, plans to go panda viewing in Sichuan have become plans to go chest hair viewing (看熊猫 kàn xióngmāo vs. 看胸毛 kàn xiōngmáo). Or declaring “going to stand in line” (去排队 qù páiduì) instead of “going to party” (去派对 qù pàiduì) a popular hipster pastime in Germany. And surely some China tourists have melancholically ordered a “ticket towards injury” (伤害 shānghài) at the ticket counter and, of course, still ended up in Shanghai (上海 Shànghǎi).
The reason for the pronunciation confusion: While we can assemble our syllables almost arbitrarily from the alphabet’s letter toolbox into countless variants, the Chinese only know a fixed set of initial and final sounds and thus also only a limited number of syllables, namely around 400. And from this admittedly somewhat thin pool of syllables, all words must ultimately be pieced together. Many words thus look identical or at least almost identical in the Pinyin phonetic transcription – an important crutch especially for us as learners of foreign languages – so they differ at most by their phonetic progression.
Notorious in this context, by the way, are also tone exercises from Chinese lessons, which play with changes of meaning with intonation changes. Above all, the classic: The horse scolded by the mother (妈妈骂马吗？ Māma mà mǎ ma? “Does the mother scold the horse?”). But such syllable sequences are a dime a dozen. For example, the little word “mi” can mean “rice,” “honey,” “fan,” or simply “meow!” depending on the emphasis. And with the syllable “bao”, the listener only knows whether a “bag”, a “leopard”, “instead of” or “thin” is meant if the speaker catches the right tone.
The good news is, as mentioned before, the context of the conversation usually saves us! After all, very few people travel to Sichuan to marvel at chest hair (at most at that of pandas, perhaps). The only problem for language learners is when two “pronunciation twins” are in the same word field or are semantically related in some way. Then the risk is that they are equally plausible in a certain context. This means that genuine misunderstandings are bound to happen.
After all, there is some difference whether you tell your fund manager to buy (买 mǎi) or sell (卖 mài) a stock, whether your company branch is located in Shanxi (山西 Shānxī) or Shaanxi (陕西 Shǎnxī) province, whether you ask the stewardess for a glass (杯子 bēizi) or a blanket (被子 bèizi) on the plane, and whether you book a Chinese (汉语 Hànyǔ) or Korean (韩语 Hányǔ) course at a language school.
Was the blind date a disaster because the guy was simply not presentable (丑 chǒu “ugly”) or because he smelled unpleasant (臭 chòu “stink”)? Does your new friend have a lot of cats (猫 māo) or a lot of body hair (毛 máo)? And have you watched three seasons (季 jì) of your new favorite Netflix show this weekend, or just three episodes (集 jí)?
The Chinese themselves, on the other hand, are not intimidated by the myriad of consonants. On the contrary. As native speakers, they not only stride lightly over the phonetic piano, they have even declared the play with multiple and double meanings to be a small national sport.
Puns with homophones (谐音xiéyīn – “homophone”) have a centuries-old tradition in Chinese-speaking countries and are still popular today. In recent years, China’s rising comedy scene has coined the popular term 谐音梗 xiéyīngěng (“play-on-words, phonetic gag”), a dry form of humor that is not only used in entertainment formats, but also has found its way into social networks and coffee break conversations. On the Internet, homophones are also considered a popular trick to circumvent various censorship filters. Here, for example, sensitive terms (敏感词 mǐngǎncí) are simply replaced by harmless characters that sound the same or similar. This way, the reader knows the meaning, but the machine does not.
But sometimes, even meticulous pronunciation preparation and last-minute phonetics training are of no help. Because there are simply some words in Chinese that sound completely identical. For example, I recently caused a stir at a Beijing police station when I asked for an extension of my “detention card” (jūliúzhèng). But all I wanted was to apply for a new issue of my residence permit. Unfortunately, jūliú means both “detention” (拘留) and “residence” (居留). To distinguish the corresponding paper, the little word 许可 xǔkě “permit” is therefore added in the case of “residence permit” as a precautionary measure (居留许可证 jūliúxǔkězhèng), which I, unfortunately, had forgotten. Fortunately, the misunderstanding could be resolved quickly. And so I am writing this column behind a desk, not behind bars.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
