Punching holes in a belt

bodawei
 March 02, 2010, 03:23 AM posted in I Have a Question

How do you say 'Can you please punch another couple of holes in my belt?  [A common problem for Westerners spending time in China in my experience - they lose weight!]  

I'm thinking that I would say something like: 请把这个带穿孔还有两个。。。 [looking helpless, pointing to holes].  I'm not really sure how to say 'hole' apart from 破 pò - would this apply to the holes in a belt?  Measure word for 'hole'?  

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ousijia
 March 02, 2010, 03:47 AM

Hi Bodawei,

You could say 请你帮我把我的腰带多穿几个孔.

How can foreigners lose weight in China with all the delicious food and copious amounts of rice!?! V.jealous of them!

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bodawei
 March 02, 2010, 07:26 AM

Thanks ousijia

I've just come back from getting the job done and it was interesting - no talk of punching holes at all!  His expression was 打印。。I wonder is this is another culture difference - I thought of expressing it in terms of more holes but he thought only of the action involved.  

About weight - my experience is shared with quite a few people I speak to.  Rice won't put on weight; having a talk to a doctor recently in Australia his view is that the main factor is less meat (and particularly animal fat) in the diet. Chinese eat meat with everything it seems, but the quantities eaten are far less than in the West. (Just think about the typical 'meat' dish in China, compared to a slab of steak in the West.) This is interesting too from the environmental 'footprint' angle; another reason why China's environmental footprint is far smaller than in America and Australia.  

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bodawei
 March 02, 2010, 07:32 AM

I should also mention that the shoe repairer (one of life's labourers?) did the job for me for nothing.  I thought about the discussion on another thread about culture shock, and complaints about being 'ripped off' at every opportunity.  It is not my experience - rather the reverse.  I feel far less 'ripped off' in China than in the West. When I hear stories from Westerners I wonder how many of these unpleasant moments in China are due to misunderstanding what is said?  Or misunderstanding the way things are done here?