Some workmate’s generosity somehow gave me a chance to taste a kind of very beautiful fruit. It has the red but coarse skin, white juicy pulp and a small dark-brown core. It used to be described by many ancient Chinese poets in all kinds of literature forms and delivered to many Chinese dynasts’ kings who were living far from where the fruit grow harvesting by the fastest horses and the most exhausted couriers with many days’ non-stop running and riding. I guess the distance was at least as much as the one from Darwin to Sydney. Sure……it’s “lizhi”, a nice Chinese fruit, also an alluring trouble maker.

Even in China where the plants originally from, I didn’t have many opportunities to have Lizhi, so when the workmate put it in front of my eyes, I couldn’t help screaming out its Chinese name in the English tone “lichee”. My workmate strangely looked at me for at least 5 seconds and suddenly realized what on earth I was saying, “Oh, lychee….”she corrected me gently but clearly with a very casual attitude, leaving me in speechless also confused.

Lychee?! %^&*……what? It’s supposed to be pronounced as lychee in English? Look, I don’t mind “Tu Dou” to be called “potato” or “Mian Bao” to be spoken as “bread” because they are just totally different pronunciations in two different languages, but the name of this red fruit was apparently translated from Chinese word “lizhi” that lent its similar Chinese pronunciation, wasn’t it? So I stared at this little so-called lychee thing on my desk and don’t know if I should have it as “lychee”, or “lichee” or “lizhi”…….I was totally lost.

Maybe I did look like a fool who even doesn’t know the English name of this kind of fruit in front of my workmate, but what she doesn’t know is that this little thing that she calls lychee is something belongs to my country, my culture and my language. She took it so granted that this is the right way to say it. The situation is just like the Chinese people try to make an English tourist accept “Peigen” as his favourite “bacon”.

Was I over-reacting to this? Probably yes, but I would definitely say “no” when it reminds me some previous experience like someone around me was asking my suggest about how to cook “Bok Choy”, “Lu Bok” or “Hon kon” while I just didn’t get it what the hell they were talking about. Obviously they were talking about some Chinese vegetable, but which kind of vegetable was that? And, they also were very surprised to see a genuine Chinese not knowing her own country’s vegetable? What a crazy world! It sounds terrible, but trust me, it had happened not just one time, it happens all the time on me. I hate it, hate it all to death, not because I can not take the way they call it, it’s because I can not take the way they initially translated it. Alas! Bad translation does make the communication more impossible and confusing.