Login | Register

(picture unashamedly stolen from orionoir. in blatant violation of copyright.)

Hi.  Remember me?  I'm the mango-loving 'mouse who brought you such gems as my instructions for eating deer dick.  Well.  Orionoir recently discovered that Bakerina leaves the keys under the flowerpot just to the left of her door.  So while the boss-cat's away at work the 'mouse, will play.

Pull up a chair and let me tell you a true story about homophones.  No, silly, not homophobes.  To the best of my knowledge there are none of them in this tale   Though, speaking of tales, there is at least one tail in this tale.  And that, my deers, is at the heart of the problem.  But I get ahead of myself.

By way of background 'mouse spent a couple years in China eating and trying to learn Chinese.  Chinese is an interesting language. Mandarin has a relatively limited number of sounds, leading to a lot of words which are homophones or near-homophones.  That's the reason for the headline.  To the non-native speaker, Ellie pant meat and Elephant meat are so close in pronunciation that you'd never have a chance of getting it right.  And if you'd had a bear (oops, a beer) or two, the whole process would be helpless… hopeless.  Oh, nevermind. 

(P.S.  You'll need this later to make sense of this tail… er, tale:  In Chinese, "elephant" is a near-homophone for "fragrant" which is a more poetic analogue for …. (keep reading) ).

The other thing that's important to this story is that Chinese use a lot of creative poetic license in naming food.  Examples include "Phoenix Claws" for plain old barnyard chicken feet down at your local dimsum house.  Try asking for chicken feet and they'll look at you like you just farted rather loudly in public.  Ask for Phoenix Claws and you get a warm smile and a delicacy..  Or, apropos to my earlier story, "Exploding Flower Dish" is the only way to order the otherwise far too pedestrian and crude "deer dick."  America's got our Rocky Mountain Oysters, so who are we to criticize.

One last cultural tidbit before we begin.  Chinese peasants can become increasingly loud and essentially shout at you when you don't understand something.  I guess they figure you're deaf, not stupid.  Thanks for the vote of confidence, but we howlies are just stupid sometimes.  Deal with it.

Beginning already.  This story didn't happen to me (unless you don't buy that about any story that begins "I have a friend…"  I have a friend we'll call "Frank" since, frankly, I cannot recall his real name and I'm too lazy to try to drag it up from the depths of memory just to have to change later it to protect the guilty.

Frank was in China.  The year was about 1987.  In those days it'd been nearly 40 years since Caucasians had been in many parts of China if they ever were there at all.  The great "opening" of China to foreign teachers and students had only begun three years earlier.  We were rare beasts.  However, the most creative of us students had discovered an obscure law that said that one of the "benefits" we received as students was the right to stay in local hotels and to travel as a local anywhere but military-secure areas.  In 1987 tourists were limited to specific hotels in specific cities, had to stay on tour, etc.  Not us.

Several of us students decided we'd abuse our travel privileges during our 1-week break to travel alone and have Adventures™.  'Mouse sensibly decided to make a pilgrimage in search of the source of Tsingtao beer.  I'm no dummy.  "Frank," however, decided that he'd honor the memory of Chairman Mao by putting a copy of Mao's Little Red Book in his rucksack and set out alone along the well-worn path to visit Mao's original home village.  Who cares that he was about 15 years too late.

After 30+ hours on various and horrid trains, Frank had made his way from Beijing in the north to the heart of rural southern China to Mao's sleepy now-neglected village.  Dead tired in a way that one who hasn't spent 30 hours on Chinese trains cannot truly understand, Frank disembarked and staggered into town near midnight.  A light beckoned from a small "guest house."  Smoke poured from the barbeque.  A good sign.  As in all the world, Southerners eat and drink and sleep late.  This is a Good Thing for Frank who's very hungry.

"A beer please."  (Drinking it quickly to clear the train dust and to add courage to support this crazy, I-cant-believe-I'm-alone-in-the-middle-of-goddamn-nowhere-where-no one-speaks English-and-my Chinese-sucks escapade.)  "Hi, my name is Frank.  I came to visit Mao's home town."

You what?

I came to visit Chairman Mao's home town.  Long live the Chairman, etc. etc….

You're late.  He's dead.  We've adopted a whole new set of values.  How do you think I opened this guest house.  "To Get Rich is Glorious" is the new slogan.  But we're really glad you're here.  Would you like something to eat or are you going to drink beer all night?

Umm.   Errrr.  I'd… ahhhh.   What's the house specialty?   I've come 1500 miles from Beijing and 6000 miles from my home to Mao's birth village and I'd like to eat something local and special. 

The special is "Ellie Pants Meat."

Ellie Pants Meat?  What's that?  (Here's where the game of 20 questions begins:  Is it pig?  Cow?  Duck?  Chicken?  Oh, shit, I'm running out of meats.  Venison?  Pigeon?  Water Buffalo?  (how'd I remember that one?)

Nope nope nope nope and nope.  It's ELLIE PANTS MEAT!. 

(Stretching my vocabulary here)  Zebra?  Kangaroo?  Raccoon?  Koala bear?

Nope.  Elephant meet.   

What? 

ELEPHANT MEAT!!!

Hunh? 

I said, "FRAGRANT MEAT" like "smells good,"   are you stupid?

Okay, I'll have it.  Whatever.  And bring me two more bears.  Beers.

Which brings us to the point where Frank tells us that the hostess reached into the 'frig and grabbed a piece of meat by some long appendage that, in retrospect, post-hangover, was long and skinny and boney.  She swung it onto the outdoor cutting block and whacked off a hunk and tossed it on the barbeque and threw on some sauce and put the remaining pieces-parts back in the frig.

Later, she brings over a well-charred hunk of meat and another beer.  (Are we on #5 yet?)  "Here's your Fragrant Meat."  "The house specialty!"

Fragrant Meat?   Do you mean "dog?"

DOG IS CRUDE.  WE PREFER TO CALL IT BY ITS PROPER NAME:  FRAGRANT MEAT.

(I'll have another beer, thanks.)