Canto Bites: Eat Lemons
This might be an unpopular opinion, but sour 酸 (syun1) things are the best. I've always adored Warheads, the tongue-numbingly sour candies of my childhood. I'm only sometimes disappointed that their sour surface vanished into sweetness too quickly. I'll eat raw rhubarb, vinegar, olives, grapefruit, sour plum juice, you name it.
My grandma had an crab apple tree, and as a child I loved cramming my mouth with those sour, crunchy orbs. I couldn't exactly eat them because they were more core than fruit, but they did make me drool all over the place, so that was kind of a fun game (we were outside, by the way). So as far as food goes, if it's sour, I'll probably like it.
Considering my sour-loving disposition, it's no surprise that I love lemons. Lemon tea, a staple cha chaan teng drink, is a favorite of mine, as is lemon curd spread over warm scones (not a cha chaan teng special, sadly) .When I was young, I remember my mom's incredulous face when I asked her for half a lemon to eat. To her surprise, I bit right into it and enjoyed every tongue-curling drop.
When I first heard the Cantonese idiom "eat lemons" 食檸檬 sik6 ling4 mung1, I thought maybe it was something like sour grapes. After all, most people don't like to actually ear lemons.
Nor sour grapes. In English, if someone has a case of sour grapes, it means that they pretend they don't like something because they can't have it. It comes from an Aesop story about a fox who tried and tried to get some grapes. When the grapes proved impossible to reach, the fox comforted itself by saying that the grapes were sour anyway.
So when your friend wins a free trip to Ocean Park and you don't, you can say, "I didn't want to go. I don't even like sea otters. And I definitely don't want to go on the Raging River adventure ride that was closed last time I went. I'm sure it's not fun at all."
That, my friends, is sour grapes.
Or just plain old jealousy. I realized while writing this that I don't actually know the word for jealousy. A quick dictionary search brought up both 呷醋 haap3 cou3 and 眼熱 ngaan5 jit6. So...we've got sip vinegar and eye hot. Wow. Since I don't know which word is better, please comment and let me know whether you are Team Vinegar or Team Eye. You might be able to guess which word I hope is the better one.
Anyway, back to eating lemons. 食檸檬 sik6 ling4 mung1, it turns out, does not mean the same thing as sour grapes.Not all fruit is the same. "Eat lemons" in Canto actually means to be rejected!
And I think more specifically when a guy gets rejected by a girl. I guess it makes sense; a rejection would leave a sour taste in your mouth. And I'm guessing if you eat lemons then you just might get a case of sour grapes to save face.
While I don't really plan on getting rejected by girls anytime soon (and no plans to ask a girl out), I will take all the 檸檬 you can give me!
My grandma had an crab apple tree, and as a child I loved cramming my mouth with those sour, crunchy orbs. I couldn't exactly eat them because they were more core than fruit, but they did make me drool all over the place, so that was kind of a fun game (we were outside, by the way). So as far as food goes, if it's sour, I'll probably like it.
Considering my sour-loving disposition, it's no surprise that I love lemons. Lemon tea, a staple cha chaan teng drink, is a favorite of mine, as is lemon curd spread over warm scones (not a cha chaan teng special, sadly) .When I was young, I remember my mom's incredulous face when I asked her for half a lemon to eat. To her surprise, I bit right into it and enjoyed every tongue-curling drop.
When I first heard the Cantonese idiom "eat lemons" 食檸檬 sik6 ling4 mung1, I thought maybe it was something like sour grapes. After all, most people don't like to actually ear lemons.
Nor sour grapes. In English, if someone has a case of sour grapes, it means that they pretend they don't like something because they can't have it. It comes from an Aesop story about a fox who tried and tried to get some grapes. When the grapes proved impossible to reach, the fox comforted itself by saying that the grapes were sour anyway.
So when your friend wins a free trip to Ocean Park and you don't, you can say, "I didn't want to go. I don't even like sea otters. And I definitely don't want to go on the Raging River adventure ride that was closed last time I went. I'm sure it's not fun at all."
That, my friends, is sour grapes.
Or just plain old jealousy. I realized while writing this that I don't actually know the word for jealousy. A quick dictionary search brought up both 呷醋 haap3 cou3 and 眼熱 ngaan5 jit6. So...we've got sip vinegar and eye hot. Wow. Since I don't know which word is better, please comment and let me know whether you are Team Vinegar or Team Eye. You might be able to guess which word I hope is the better one.
Anyway, back to eating lemons. 食檸檬 sik6 ling4 mung1, it turns out, does not mean the same thing as sour grapes.Not all fruit is the same. "Eat lemons" in Canto actually means to be rejected!
And I think more specifically when a guy gets rejected by a girl. I guess it makes sense; a rejection would leave a sour taste in your mouth. And I'm guessing if you eat lemons then you just might get a case of sour grapes to save face.
While I don't really plan on getting rejected by girls anytime soon (and no plans to ask a girl out), I will take all the 檸檬 you can give me!
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