{"id":7856,"date":"2019-10-06T03:24:37","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T03:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-reading\/the-doctor-and-the-monkey\/"},"modified":"2019-10-06T03:24:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T03:24:37","slug":"the-doctor-and-the-monkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/th\/the-doctor-and-the-monkey\/","title":{"rendered":"The Doctor and the Monkey"},"content":{"rendered":"
 Eeps – bad medicine! In this story, the mischievous Mo<\/em>nkey – always a trickster figure in Chinese stories – pulls the wool over Little Bear’s eyes. If Little Bear was American, he’d sue the hospital for negligence and rake in millions of baskets of peaches.<\/p>\n

Read Chinese: Bedtime Stories in Mandarin Chinese CharactersThough the majority of this text is very basic reading, there are three phrases which jump out at me as being difficult, or words I couldn’t find in basic dictionaries.<\/p>\n

\u7406\u6240\u5e94\u5f53 – l\u01d0 su\u01d2 y\u012bng d\u0101ng This phrase means to feel something is well-deserved, that something has been earned through hard work, usually when it actually hasn’t. So I guess that roughly translates to ‘taking a reward for granted’? In this story, Mo<\/em>nkey feels that his payment is well-earned or well-deserved. But as readers, we know Mo<\/em>nkey doesn’t deserve anything at all – he’s taking that payment for granted when he didn’t really earn it. Co<\/em>nsider this phrase in another context:<\/p>\n

\u522b\u4eba\u5e2e\u52a9\u4f60\u90a3\u662f\u4e49\u6c14\uff0c\u4f60\u4e0d\u80fd\u5f53\u4f5c\u662f\u7406\u6240\u5e94\u5f53\u7684\u3002 – “When other people help you it’s in the spirit of self-sacrifice, you shouldn’t co<\/em>nsider this something you deserve as a matter of course.”<\/p>\n

\u751c\u5934 – Though this looks like two words, the first meaning “sweet” and the second meaning “head” or “brain”, it’s actually a colloquialism that just means “sweet flavor” or “pleasant taste”.<\/p>\n

\u8d2a\u5ff5 – These two characters also seem separate, they don’t appear together in my dictionary, but they’re actually one word. According to Baidu Bai Ke, the Baidu dictio<\/em>nary (a Chinese-language resource for word meanings and derivations), \u8d2a\u5ff5 t\u0101n niàn just means “greedy” (I presume the “\u5ff5” probably adds the meaning “idea” or “thoughts” here, so \u8d2a\u5ff5 could be read as “greedy thoughts”).<\/p>\n

You can read the original here.
Click to Listen<\/p>\n

\u73a9\u800d – wán shu\u01ce – Enjoy oneself, mess around
\u767d\u5927\u8902\u5b50 – bái dà guà zi – White lab coat [lit: Large white unlined upper garment]
\u770b\u75c5 – kàn bìng – See a doctor
\u916c\u91d1 – chóu j\u012bn – mo<\/em>netary remuneration, payment
\u8d2a\u5ff5 – t\u0101n niàn – Greedy
\u88c5\u6a21\u4f5c\u6837 – zhu\u0101ng mó zuò yàng – To put on an act
\u4e0d\u5f97\u800c\u77e5 – bù dé ér zh\u012b – Can’t be known, unknowable
\u6f5c\u5165 – qián rù – To sneak into
\u5e72\u8106 – g\u0101n cuì – Simply, straightbforward
\u7334\u5b50\u53bb\u533b\u9662\u73a9\u800d,\u8fdb\u4e86\u5927\u592b\u7684\u623f\u95f4\u3002\u6b63\u597d\u5927\u592b\u4e0d\u5728,\u8863\u670d\u4e5f\u843d\u5728\u4e86\u623f\u95f4\u5185\u3002<\/p>\n

\u7334\u5b50\u89c9\u5f97\u597d\u73a9,\u5c31\u7a7f\u4e0a\u4e86\u5927\u592b\u7684\u8863\u670d,\u4e5f\u5c31\u662f\u6211\u4eec\u5e38\u89c1\u7684\u90a3\u79cd\u767d\u5927\u8902\u5b50\u3002\u8fd9\u65f6\u5019\u6709\u4e00\u53ea\u5c0f\u718a\u6765\u533b\u9662\u770b\u75c5\u3002\u5c0f\u718a\u662f\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u4e0a\u533b\u9662,\u5e76\u4e0d\u4e86\u89e3\u533b\u9662\u7684\u60c5\u51b5\u3002\u5b83\u6240\u77e5\u9053\u7684,\u5c31\u662f\u5927\u592b\u4eec\u90fd\u7a7f\u7740\u767d\u5927\u8902\u5b50\u3002<\/p>\n

\u5c0f\u718a\u63d0\u7740\u4e00\u7bee\u6843\u5b50(\u8fd9\u662f\u5b83\u51c6\u5907\u9001\u7ed9\u5927\u592b\u7684\u916c\u91d1)\u6765\u5230\u533b\u9662,\u6b63\u597d\u8d70\u8fdb\u7334\u5b50\u6240\u5728\u7684\u623f\u95f4\u3002\u5c0f\u718a\u4e0d\u8ba4\u8bc6\u7334\u5b50,\u4f46\u662f\u5b83\u8ba4\u8bc6\u90a3\u4ef6\u767d\u5927\u8902\u5b50,\u4e8e\u662f\u5c31\u8bf7\u7334\u5b50\u7ed9\u5b83\u770b\u75c5\u3002<\/p>\n

\u7334\u5b50\u672c\u6765\u53ea\u662f\u73a9\u800d,\u5e76\u4e0d\u4f1a\u770b\u75c5,\u4f46\u662f\u5b83\u770b\u5230\u5c0f\u718a\u7684\u7bee\u5b50\u540e,\u5c31\u8d77\u4e86\u8d2a\u5ff5\u3002\u4e8e\u662f\u7334\u5b50\u4fbf\u88c5\u6a21\u4f5c\u6837\u5730\u7ed9\u5c0f\u718a\u770b\u4e86\u75c5,\u5e76\u4e14\u7406\u6240\u5e94\u5f53\u5730\u6536\u4e0b\u4e86\u90a3\u7bee\u6843\u5b50\u3002\u81f3\u4e8e\u5c0f\u718a\u7684\u75c5\u662f\u5426\u7ed9\u7334\u5b50\u770b\u597d\u4e86,\u8fd9\u4e00\u70b9\u4e0d\u5f97\u800c\u77e5\u3002<\/p>\n

\u4f46\u662f\u7334\u5b50\u5374\u5c1d\u5230\u4e86\u751c\u5934,\u4ee5\u540e\u5e38\u5e38\u6f5c\u5165\u533b\u9662,\u8d81\u5927\u592b\u4e0d\u5728\u7684\u65f6\u5019,\u7a7f\u4e0a\u5927\u592b\u7684\u8863\u670d,\u7ed9\u75c5\u4eba\u770b\u75c5\u3002\u5230\u540e\u6765,\u7334\u5b50\u5e72\u8106\u7ed9\u81ea\u5df1\u4e5f\u505a\u4e86\u4e00\u8eab\u90a3\u6837\u7684\u767d\u5927\u8902\u5b50\u3002<\/p>\n

\u5509!\u6211\u4eec\u4e0d\u77e5\u9053\u6709\u591a\u5c11\u4eba\u662f\u5728\u7334\u5b50\u90a3\u91cc\u770b\u7684\u75c5\u554a!
Hide English »
Mo<\/em>nkey went to the hospital on a lark, and entered the doctor’s room. At that moment, the doctor wasn’t in, and he’d left his [doctor’s] clothes in the room.<\/p>\n

Mo<\/em>nkey thought this would be fun, so he put on the doctor’s clothes, that white lab coat we see so often. Just then a little bear came to the hospital to see the doctor. This was the little bear’s first time at the hospital, and he didn’t know what hospitals were like [lit: didn’t know the hospital situation]. All he knew was that doctors wear white lab coats.<\/p>\n

The little bear had shown up at the hospital carrying a basket of peaches (this was the payment he had prepared to give to the doctor), and he happened to walk into the room wher Mo<\/em>nkey was. Little Bear didn’t know Monkey, but he recognized the white lab coat, so he asked Mo<\/em>nkey to examine him.<\/p>\n

Mo<\/em>nkey originally just [intended to] have a bit of fun, but when he saw Little Bear’s basket, he coveted it fiercely. So Mo<\/em>nkey put on a big show of examining Little Bear, and accepted his well-earned basket of peaches. As to whether or not Mo<\/em>nkey actually cured Little Bear, we will never know.<\/p>\n

However, after Mo<\/em>nkey tasted that sweetness, he often stole into the hospital, taking advantage of the doctor’s absence, and examined patients. Later, Mo<\/em>nkey simply made himself one of those kind of white lab coats.<\/p>\n

Ai! We don’t know how many people were examined by Monkey!
<\/div>\n