Content created: 2018-12-31
File Last Modified: 2019-01-06
All, or almost all, Chinese adults were expected to be married (or at least to have been married). For a girl, marriage tended to be traumatic, for it involved leaving her family and moving in with the unknown family of her new husband. For a boy, marriage was more likely to be experienced as the sudden appearance in his life of a new coworker, caretaker, or even toy.
In this ditty a little boy wishes for a wife. The intended humor seems to be that he doesn’t know quite what he would do if he had one, but having a wife apparently seems a very grown-up thing to do.
| A very little boy sat on the stone doorstep, Crying that he wanted a wife. |
小小子儿，坐门彻礅儿， 哭着喊看要媳妇儿。 Xiǎo xiǎo zǐ’r, zuò mén chè dūn’r, kūzhe hǎn kàn yào xífù’r. 小小子兒，坐門徹礅兒， 哭著喊看要媳婦兒。 |
| What did he want a wife for? | 要了媳妇儿作什么？ Yàole xífù’r zuò shénme? 要了媳婦兒作甚麼？ |
| She would light the lamps and they would talk; She would blow out the lamp and keep him company; |
点上灯说话儿， 吹了灯作伴儿， Diǎn shàng dēng shuōhuà’r; chuīle dēng zuò bàn’r; 點上燈說話兒， 吹了燈作伴兒， |
| Next morning she would comb out his little queue. | 明儿个起来梳小辫儿。 Míng’r gè qǐlái shū xiǎo biàn’r. 明兒個起來梳小辮兒。 |
The Chinese text used here has been taken from:
The simplified-character version has been computer generated and may contain errors. The Romanized version was produced by Google Translate and lightly edited. For Pekinese ditties, my tinkering with the Romanization is generally mostly to spell the distinctively Pekinese final R sound as ’r rather than as a full syllable (but preserving the full spelling of whatever it is attached to), and to give the suffix le 了 its full reading as liáo where the rhyme or meter seemed to require it. Although Johnson provides English translations, the English translation given here is by DKJ. The Chinese and English texts here may be used for educational purposes without further permission.
(Poem Number 12)