Since I have nothing much to do at work at the moment, I thought I’d use the time to blog. Lately I’ve been trying to write a little more in Chinese, hence the previous entry (just for practice). Often the writing’s inspired by something I had read in a tweet posted by some Chinese celebrity over at Weibo. And sometimes it’s just easier to follow that train of thought in Chinese. To write it in English would cause the thought to lose its flavour. Such is the case with language where some thoughts just aren’t translated well. When translated, the tone and content just makes it sound somewhat dumb.
Anyway, in some random musings, I read a newspaper article and learnt the Chinese name for bungee jumping. The article reported about an Australian tourist’s botch bungee jump in Zambezi River at Victoria Falls. Miraculously she survived after her rope snapped – she had jumped from a height of 111m into the river.
The Chinese name for bungee jump is 笨猪跳 [pronounced: bern-choo-tiao]. It’s a translation based more on the similarity of how it sounds to ‘bungee’ than what it means. But if you’re interested, Wikipedia writes:

“The word ‘bungee’ originates from West Country dialect of English language, meaning ‘Anything thick and squat’, as defined by James Jennings in his book Observations of Some of the Dialects in The West of England published 1825.”

The literal translation 笨猪跳, however, is “stupid pig jumps”. It’s quite funny actually; I think it says very much about the nature of the act. I, for one, would never attempt bungee jumping. I don’t like the free fall feeling and depending on just one thick bungee cord for survival is just a risk I wouldn’t take. Nope, definitely not for me.
And last week I came across a quote which went something like:

Men: the desirable are always unavailable and the available always undesirable.

The story of my life. That same day, I came across this other quote:

Seduce my mind and I’ll give you my body. Find my soul and I’m yours forever.
~ Anonymous

Love it. What sensual words they are!
Today’s three things to be thankful for:
1. Secured a dinner reservation at Bobby Chinn, a fine dining restaurant in Hanoi, on my first night in the city! Yes, I do plan my meals early.
2. Picked up Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, a book I had reserved at the library. Hurray, new reading material!
3. Got my nasi lemak fix at this hole-in-the-wall eatery run by Indonesian Chinese. Wednesday is nasi lemak day and I go there when I miss having Malay food, I love their chicken curry, beef rendang, sambal goreng and other Malay fare. Their curries are the real stuff and not like the ones served in Hong Kong eateries where they are usually sweet, watered down bastardised versions. What’s more, the food’s cheap!