FOUND IN TRANSLATION EPISODE 21

‘Never expect anything from anyone, Gosia. See – this is your problem. You are so tough on yourself . Therefore you expect a lot from others so you end up feeling disappointed or worse when they fail’.That’s what my friend Ana – already back in the land of tequila – has been trying to make me realize. What can I say? I know she is right, but it is really hard not to get your hopes really high sometimes. Whether about a man who reassures you of his sincere feelings, a new internet network in your office touted as ‘fast and furious and the best in all Shanghai’, or a trip to dream land where everyone eats rainbows and digests them into butterflies. And when reality comes knocking, you may either be painfully smacked down, take it with peace and dignity or…create a phrase that the whole wide world – even French people – would adopt. Just like what happened to the Monkey King, in the Chinese adaptation of Japan's comedic anime film, ‘Journey to the West’. As the voyage came to an end, the disillusioned Monkey King exclaimed ’This is India? It does not gěi lì, teacher!’

Whoever equipped him with these two humble characters : 给 – gěi – give and 力- lì- power, strength – definitely had not expected that this phrase 不给力- bù gěi lì would be adopted into both the Chinglish and Frenchese lexicons.. This is how it unfolded:

1) In the mouth of the Monkey King, 不给力- bù gěi lì initially meant that India, after their long journey, fell short of their expectations.

2) Soon after that, a Shanghai-based magazine coined the Chinglish ‘ungelivable’ ,meaning – dull, boring,disappointing

3) Then 给力 escaped 不 and became the Chinese double of ‘cool/ awesome’, and even gained the highest of buzz word glory when China daily featured it on the front page, albeit with a slightly changed meaning (empower) – This was the first slang ever approved by the CPC for use in the paper..

4) Delighted netizens got so empowered themselves that eventually gěi lì evolved into the word ‘gelivable’ and morphed into the Frenchese phrase, ‘très guélile’ – ‘so geili and so cool’.

That’s in short a story of how one’s dashed hopes can be productively salvaged. But of course, unless you are an anime character, having expectations is risky business and disappointment is its frequent consequence. Frequent, but not constant!

When I was coming to Shanghai from wild, wild Chengdu with a single suitcase, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, on a 37-hour train I was bursting with high expectations about my destination. I will never forget how I felt when I got out of the taxi in downtown in Jingan on a beautiful mid-October day. Had I been more seasoned Chinese learner by then, instead of texting my Mandarin teacher ‘I Survived!’,I would have proclaimed ‘This is Shanghai? It SO DOES gěi lì, teacher!

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