Clear Window Sticky Paper

Scotch tape, that is. Tou ming jiao bu or zhi or tiao, depending on who is translating or what you want to say. Mr. Edward Wu Da something said it should be jiao zhi, which should mean sticky paper. When I told this to Didi and Ice, they laughed and asked, "jiao zhi, what is that?" So, I'm glad I didn't try jiao zhi out on anyone. They said it should be jiao bu or jaoi tiao. I don't remember what bu means, maybe cloth. Doris, the girl in the supply room (ku feng) at school, says it's tou ming jiao bu. As long as she knows what I mean when I really need it, that's the crucial thing.

But, if language defines the way a society thinks, how people interpret the world around them, it's worth paying attention to this word tape. The first two words, tou ming should be clear window, otherwise known as transparent. Next comes, jiao, which I guess means sticky. Then it's a matter of interpretation what noun to use (sticky what?). Mr. Wu called it sticky paper. I have no clue about bu, but my understanding of tiao is that it stand for long things, like string or wire, and can be used for lots of similar stuff. For example, when I bought 8 meters of cable so I could put one of the speakers for my shelf set in a different room, I asked for tiao. Wo mai la bah mi tiao. I'm pretty sure that means I bought 8 meters of cable. At least, I said that to a Chinese friend, and he appeared to understand just fine.

Point is, we English speakers tend to generalize and are prone to abstraction; we are also in a hurry. It's enough just to say tape. That's quick and easy. In China they ask for clear window sticky paper, or string, or something long. It takes a lot more time to digest that picture. There is a lot to visualize. Every word is a picture, just like their writing or drawing, however you define the characters. Every part of the word is very concrete except perhaps for the all-purpose word tiao; even that is concrete and pictorial once you understand that it represents long, stringy thingies. And every picture has to be processed by the mind's eye. The process is slow. I have many opportunities every day to watch the process evolve before my own frequently impatient eyes.

Thinking, reading, talking, imagining, and philosophing in pictures must profoundly influence a person's interpretation of the world, their world view, in ways that we cut-to-the-chase Westerners find difficult, if not impossible, to understand. I'm sure it has already been said by far more educated minds than mine. Check it out if you're still interested.

World View...that's the apartment complex where we live. Kandu...supposedly it means something like world view. It dawned on me one day that if kan means look, du must have something to do with world, but I don't know what. Bill says it's capital, this makes sense since Beijing is the capital of the middle kingdom, center of world civilization. Here's one I do understand though. Kan shu literally means look at book. But the translation is read a book. So, all those years we pretended to be reading in class but were really daydreaming? Hey, here in China, the kds really are reading, or kan shuing that is.