Torsten Hewson
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On Tianlan's insults in Chapter 54
🕑 Added 2022-12-17 18:41:16 +0000 UTCOkay, so apparently there was some confusion about what Tianlan was saying, at least in the discord, so I've decided to clear things up.
First: "why is it in romanized chinese?"
Because I thought it would be funny. And like Hong Yaowu and Zi Difeng Ba is in romanized chinese. They're all speaking chinese.
Now, onto the insults, and some cultural context.
https://yoyochinese.com/blog/Chinese-Insults-How-Name-Call-Pro-Part-1
https://mydailychinese.com/chinese-curse-insults/
I am copy and pasting the insults I used from these websites. None of these are my own, and one of them is not from this website, but rather the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
So! lets begin!
“Sè láng! Gǒu niáng yǎng de, èr bǎi wŭ!”
This is three insults, as Chunky says.
色狼 (sè láng)– Color-seeking wolf
A wolf seeking color is a lecher or a pervert.
Color, or 色 (sè), is often used as a euphemism for sexual content in Chinese. The wolf is a predatory image, but this term applies to non-criminal behavior as well.
狗娘养的（gǒu niáng yǎng de）
Literally translates to “born and raised by (养的) a dog (狗) mother (娘)”, meaning “son of a bitch”. Highly offensive and intolerable at any time. However, it is interesting that the two cultures share some similarities in this sense.
èr bǎi wŭ or (二百五 ) – two hundred and fifty (250)
There are a few different theories about why this became an insult.
One suggests that in ancient China, a string of 1000 copper coins made up a unit of currency called the diào (吊).
Back then, someone with limited capabilities or mental faculties would be called a bàn diào zi (半吊子), or half a diào with 500 coins.
Since 250 is half of a bàn diào zi (半吊子), the punchline here is that whoever is on the receiving end of this insult has a quarter of a brain.
Therefore Tianlan is calling gramps "perverted beast! Son of a bitch, and a few coins short of a jar." Or pervert, son of a dog, quarter wit, as Chunky says.
The next one!
“This Mixed Melon! This Bastard of three fathers! You dare try to pat this horse’s ass? Well I won’t forgive you! I bet you wear a green hat too!”
混蛋（hún dàn）
“Mixed egg” means to “mix up a lot of issues and cannot see what the problem is”, and to be unreasonable, which also refers to an unreasonable person or a bad guy. Some also say that “mixed egg” indicates “mixed-blood” or “bastard”.
And then a melon is just a bigger egg.
Bastard of three fathers: What Lu Bu was called in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as he betrayed three father figures in a row. this one is extremely insulting.
"You dare try to pat this horse's ass?"
拍马屁 (pāi mă pì) – Pat a horse’s ass.
Patting a horse’s ass is similar to sucking up or brown-nosing. It means you are singing praises you don’t mean to someone’s favor.
lǜ mào zi (绿帽子) – A green hat or cuckold
Calling a man a green hat suggests that his lover is cheating on him, and he is being cuckolded. It can be a way to insult a man's masculinity.
The story goes that a housewife in ancient China fell in love with another man in the neighborhood.
To give her lover the signal that it was safe to come by, she decided to give her husband a green hat that would keep his head warm on his journeys.
Thus, while everyone else in the village figured out what the wife was up to, her husband would proudly wear his green hat around town.
So! "You're completely unreasonable, and are so dumb you have no idea what you're doing wrong, you bastard who betrays his family. Yet you have the gall to try and suck up to me while doing things I hate? I don't forgive you! I bet your wife cheats on you!"
In conclusion, Tianlan is absolutely popping off, and if you said even a quarter of this to an actual chinese person you would probably get into a fist fight.
Comments
WolfKnight22
Oh the waiting
Gavriel
I knew the green hat one, but not the story, and the rest is new! Cool
