Grab vegetables 抢菜, Study Notes, II.
See here for 抢菜 Study Notes, I.
After the opening refrain in 抢菜 it gets increasingly difficult to follow the lyrics. Ambiguities arise. Some transcriptions become doubtful. We will persevere. The challenge is the point. We are studying art. There is room for interpretation.
There are various transcriptions of the lyrics.1 The primary source is the music video itself. But there are two difficulties. First, I find the font difficult to read. Second, the characters don’t directly match what is being said or sung.
For example, rather than showing 抢qiang3 (grab) the video shows 买mai3 (buy/purchase).
Then, at about :34’ there’s a gap in the music video’s transcription while the lyrics of the rap continue. What is missing?
As per one of the transcriptions of the lyrics, the missing words are 烦塞忒了fán sāi tèle, which is a Shanghainese dialect version of 烦死了fán sǐle. This can be translated as ‘annoying’ or more literally as annoyed/irritated ‘to death.’ “Bloody annoying” is probably an accurate UK-centric translation.
The official music video transcription seems to gloss politely over the spoken words: ‘buying’ instead of ‘grabbing’ and an omission of the colloquial but perhaps rude "烦死了".
We can deal with omissions and glosses. It will get far more complicated soon enough.
In the mean-time until we get to our next study note, let’s focus on the next bit, which is a description of (the new normal) daily routine: 定好dìnghǎo闹钟nàozhōng爬起来pá qǐlái抢菜qiǎng cài (set the alarm clock, get up, grab vegetables).
Now, hold tight as I attempt to improvise some reflections in Chinese. Setting the alarm clock, getting up with a mission: this is the routine of work. So now, in Shanghai, to buy/grab vegetables is to work, 现在在上海抢菜就是上班(xiànzài zài Shànghǎi qiǎng cài jiùshì shàngbān). Or perhaps, to work is to buy vegetables 上班就是抢菜 (shàngbān jiùshì qiǎng cài)?
And where there is work, there is innovation. Innovation has the potential to transform the everyday, as they say. The labour of manually checking for groceries online can be automated. A developer called SkyKai2 built an application called DingDongHelper.3 (Dingdong Maicai (叮咚买菜)4 is one of the many grocery apps that people rely on to replenish their stocks.) Related Github projects that help with installation and commissioning began trending.
Study Notes: quite annoying; set the alarm clock
烦塞忒了fán sāi tèle / 烦死了fán sǐle (really annoying)
烦 fan2 (all; everybody; everyone)
火huo3 (fire) and 页ye4 (original meaning head, now page/leaf)5 combine to indicate getting a headache from the heat leading to the current meaning ‘to be annoyed/irritated’
死 si3 (death, to be dead)
Composed of 歹dai3, which is said to show a carcass/skeletal remains (now it means bad or evil) and 匕 which supposedly depicts a person here to give the meaning. Alternatively it can represent a dagger or spoon. 匕 is doubled-up in 比 bi3 (compare/contrast), which shows two people next to each other. So in a way we can complete a cycle of life here. Death bringing us together again.6
了le (change in state)
定好 dìnghǎo (set/decide) nàozhōng闹钟 (alarm) - set the alarm
定ding4 (fix, decide, settle)
The very top roof of the character indicates a building while the part under the roof indicates stable and safe. The inside part is said to be a variant of 正(zheng4). The Outlier Dictionary says that the original meaning of 正 is actually the opposite of stable and safe, apparently showing a foot (止 zhi3, now: ‘to stop’) reaching a city wall, which together indicates a meaning of ‘sending out an army to attack a city/state’.7 There’s always a lot going on…8 and comparing dictionaries makes you realise how difficult it is to understand the evolution of language and how seductive a good story is.
好hao3 (good)
The character depicts a woman and a child together. Here it’s a resultative complement, you’re deciding, settling, fixing something properly, namely the alarm.
闹nao4 (noisy, bustling)
From wrangling at the market. The traditional version of the character is 鬧. The outside part is 鬥dou4 which depicts warriors raising weapons, linking to a meaning of struggle or trouble. The inside part is 市shi4 which means market.9
钟zhong1 (clock, bell)
Made up of 钅and 中, ‘metal’ and ‘middle’. That makes some sense as combining to mean clock.
钅is the ‘metal’ radical, the full form character is 金jin1. Some sources say it shows two nuggets on the earth, some sources say it shows an axe and metal plates. In any case, 金鱼(jin1yu2) is goldfish.
On the RHS 中zhong1 (middle, centre). This character speaks for itself, though one dictionary tries to make it complicated by saying the original meaning is a ‘flag used in war campaigns.’10
爬pá (crawl, climb) 起来 qǐlái (up, upwards, get up)
爬pá (crawl, climb)
The LHS is said to show a claw with a 巴 added on. A social climber is 往上爬(wang3 shang4 pa2).
起来 qǐlái (get up, upwards, become)
The left hand part of 起 is 走zou3 (walk, go, run, leave) which suggests the meaning of getting up. 来lai2 (come, do, return) adds on, but I don’t understand how add-ons like this create nuances of meaning. I’ve come across 起床qi3chuang2 (to get out of bed) — 床 is bed. So 起来 is a more general upward action.
Original repository: https://github.com/Skykai521/DingDongHelper
Outlier dictionary installed on Pleco.
See the entry in http://zhongwen.com, see also here for the evolution of 匕 and here for the evolution of 比.
ibid.
See this excellent book (link to NewYorker review) for more: Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu.
See, for example: