WORK

…It is a small, khaki-colored handbook of Vietnamese phrases which was published by the Department of the Army in 1962 for issue to U.S. personnel in South Vietnam. At the time the Vietnamese involvement was still being described as a “counterinsurgency operation” … Here are several phrases drawn from the first section, on “initial encounters with locals”:

Hello. I am an American officer who seeks friends to assist in fighting the enemy. Hide my parachute.

We heard about your (1) patriotic work (2) sufferings (3) willingness to cooperate.

Does anyone here have relatives in the U.S.?

Sit down. Have a cigarette. Have a chocolate.

From there the phrasebook provides questions to determine what it calls the “potential of locals for organization of guerrilla units,” with items like:

Do the people here (1) hate (2) like (3) fear (1) the regime (2) violence (3) the Soviets?

…The book makes for a good cautionary tale about the difficulty of anticipating everything that might befall you when you embark on a foreign adventure:

We are here to help in the struggle on the side of (1) the free world (2) the U. S. (3) the Allies (4) freedom (5) God.

Thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. Now hurry. So long.

—Geoffrey Nunberg
—from “Vietnamese for Travelers”

WORD(S)

chi ku (吃 苦) /chee-koo/. Literally, “eating bitter.” A Chinese phrase for tolerating hardship with good humor and focus, for sticking to something despite difficulties and working hard to reach a goal. Similar to—but not precisely synonymous with—English phrases such as: standing tough, (wo)man-ing up, sucking it up, etc.

“Chi ku, to ‘eat bitterness,’ can mean, literally, to eat something bitter or to suffer hardship, and I was not certain whether Mao was referring to the food we were eating or playing on words to let me know he regarded me as soft…” (Li Zhi-Sui)

“Chi Ku (eating bitterness) is a prevalent metaphor in Chinese, which refers to the enduring of hardships. However, interestingly, there is a strongly held belief among Chinese that one must [literally] eat bitterness in order to achieve a better future. For example, an ancient proverb says that ‘good medicine for health tastes bitter to the mouth.’” (Chun-Ming Yang)

“perhaps as a legacy of Confucianism, its citizens have shown a passion for education and self-improvement — along with remarkable capacity for discipline and hard work, what the Chinese call ‘chi ku,’ or ‘eating bitterness.’”" (Nicholas Kristof)

“‘Locals don’t know how to eat bitterness’ (bendi ren bu hui chi ku). The concept of eating bitterness begs further explanation. […] When outsiders say the locals don’t know how to eat bitterness, they mean that they do not know how to delay gratification.” (Nancy Chen)

WEB

1. Virtualsity, or on “inventing the musical instruments of the future.”

2. Play the “How to be a Writer” Game. Infamy and misfortune can be yours…

3. Score! All of the 80,000+ images in the Folger Library Digital Image Collection are free for use under a Creative Commons license.

4. The New York Public Library’s Instagram feed has a variety of interesting images, but among the best are the vintage, typewritten book reviews by librarians, such as one rejecting a “typical … ‘late period’ Seuss” book or, regarding Fast Times at Ridgemont High, “be sure to read the chapter about the three girls and the banana. It brought back a lot of memories”.

5. Today in 1933, Stanley Milgram is born. A mere 30 years later he’d be performing his famous experiment involving human obedience and the willingness to administer electric shocks. Gina Perry’s book Behind the Shock Machine delves into the myth and reality of Milgram’s famous experiment. If you want to weep for humanity, consider Milgram’s experiment alongside the Masserman study of “altruism” in rhesus monkeys.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

Various readers responded to my call for three-word (or more) “reduplicate” terms.

Reader H. was quickest on the draw with the slant “Huey, Dewey and Louie” followed shortly by “eeny, meeny, miny (and moe).” Reader C. pointed me in the direction of the “Ping Pang Pong” restaurant in Las Vegas. But Readers T. and G. jointly receive the head-slappingest award for sharing phrases I use too often: “yada, yada, yada” and “blah, blah, blah” respectively. Bonus: an example of the exceedingly rare “is is is” construction…

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Reader N. observes, “I see what you did with William Styron in yesterday’s newsletter!”

Those serendipitous connections and discoveries are one of a few things I live for!

I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.

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