The Turnip in China
When I first arrived in China, we had to adjust to how some food have different Chinese names from the ones we are accustomed to, or even how we have become so used to the English names that we struggle for the Chinese terms for the food item.
We found out that potatoes in Shanghai is not 马铃薯 but 土豆 (although the Shanghainese understood the former). It was also really hilarious when we wanted yam 芋头 (and we were sure we got the pronunciation right) but our domestic helper got for us fish-head 鱼头 instead.
And since quite a few Singaporean dishes have turnips in them, it was an interesting occasion when we could not find them in Shanghai. We tried describing it to our chefs in school, tried giving searching for pictures, all to no avail. They had no idea what it was called in Chinese too, even with the pictures.
It took one of my northern Chinese student Haylin to let me know what they call those things 萝卜. I went "huh?" at that. I knew 萝卜 as radishes, not turnips. It was then that I understood that, to the Chinese, turnips are simply a different type of root vegetables - all root vegetables in Chinese are 萝卜, whether carrots 红萝卜 ("red luobo"), radishes 白萝卜 ("white luobo") or just the plain turnip.
Learning languages is a matter of learning the respective cultures as well. It is great to be bilingual!
We found out that potatoes in Shanghai is not 马铃薯 but 土豆 (although the Shanghainese understood the former). It was also really hilarious when we wanted yam 芋头 (and we were sure we got the pronunciation right) but our domestic helper got for us fish-head 鱼头 instead.
And since quite a few Singaporean dishes have turnips in them, it was an interesting occasion when we could not find them in Shanghai. We tried describing it to our chefs in school, tried giving searching for pictures, all to no avail. They had no idea what it was called in Chinese too, even with the pictures.
It took one of my northern Chinese student Haylin to let me know what they call those things 萝卜. I went "huh?" at that. I knew 萝卜 as radishes, not turnips. It was then that I understood that, to the Chinese, turnips are simply a different type of root vegetables - all root vegetables in Chinese are 萝卜, whether carrots 红萝卜 ("red luobo"), radishes 白萝卜 ("white luobo") or just the plain turnip.
Learning languages is a matter of learning the respective cultures as well. It is great to be bilingual!
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