A Very Important Post About La Duzi
In River Town, his account of spending two years teaching English in a small Sichuanese city, Peter Hessler recalled that he and his Peace Corps site mate began speaking an English/Chinese patois called "Fuling English". The logic was simple: the two would converse in English but would liberally sprinkle Chinese words into their conversation out of convenience. Far from pretension, this habit occurs among every foreigner in China who speaks even a little Mandarin. Some words, phrases, and expressions simply spring to mind faster in an adopted tongue.
For instance, the term 麻烦 (ma fan) in Chinese loosely means "trouble" but is used to describe any situation that might be difficult or irritating. (Come to think of it, 麻烦 and the Italian term "casino" mean roughly the same and are both better than any English equivalent). Often, conversations between foreigners will go like this:
"Should we take the bus?"
"Nah, too 麻烦. Let's grab a cab".
Another, of course, is 拉肚å (la duzi). Even foreigners fresh off the boat know this expression- I learned it in Lianyungang even before I could speak enough Chinese to order food in a restaurant. La duzi literally means "loose bowels" and rolls easily off the tongue of everyone in China, given its unfortunate prevalence in daily life. For such an unpleasant experience, "la duzi" is a rather pretty word- it could be the name of a fancy Italian coffee you buy at Whole Foods. Its efficacy is undeniable: say "la duzi", and no further explanation is needed. Why didn't you come into work this morning? "La duzi". Ah.
There just isn't any good way to express "la duzi" in English. There's diarrhea, of course, a disgusting word that makes even the coarsest among us recoil in horror. Then there's "the shits", which, in addition to containing an expletive, rather inelegantly describes the condition. "The runs" is slightly better but not particularly evocative. From 11th grade English I recall John Steinbeck referring to "the skitters" in The Grapes of Wrath, but the reference is too obscure for modern usage. Bashful Americans typically use a roundabout way to refer to "la duzi", offering something like "Well, my stomach isn't happy and so punished me a bit" or "a bit of a tummy bug".
Fortunately, in the US and other developed countries, "la duzi" doesn't happen very often, and when it does, there's usually a direct cause. Most sufferers can identify a glass of spoiled milk or a moldy bagel as the culprit, thus remedying the situation. Yet in China, and in other developing countries, "la duzi" can strike at any time and for any reason. Even those foreigners who avoid street food and brush their teeth with filtered water cannot evade it. Most simply accept "la duzi" as a fact of life, an almost monthly occurrence that must be endured.
An English friend of mine recalled a conversation he had with his newly-arrived English boss, a teacher at the school.
M: "Hello Robert, I won't be coming in to teach today, I'm very sorry."
R: "What's the matter?"
M: "拉肚å"
R: "What?"
M: "Oh, I've got diarrhea pretty bad..don't think I can leave home".
R: "Come on. That's your excuse?"
M: (getting annoyed), "Look, I've been on the toilet six times in the past half-hour. I can't risk anything happening during class."
R: "Well, this is bloody inconvenient".
M: "Can you put Mr. Li (Chinese boss) on?"
R: "Fine"
Mr Li: "ä½ å¥½ Mark. What's the matter."
M: "拉肚å. I can't come in today"
Mr Li: "Yes, fine, I understand. See you tomorrow."
(hangs up)
Pretty much sums it up.
(For obvious reasons, I deemed it prudent not to include any photos with this post).
