Help with a sentence

freddy1705
October 11, 2010, 06:26 PM posted in I Have a Question

Hi group,

 

found this on a package of a Taiwanese snack:

 

手下留情, 捏卡小力點

the first part is no problem, grammarwise I am fine to...but I can't find niēkǎ anywhere...

 

oh yeah, on the package is a cartoon type picture of a crying little girl with a bandaid across her cheek...

 

 

阿賓

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eupnea63355
October 11, 2010, 10:02 PM

This one? Very puzzling indeed. Others at this website:

http://www.dianping.com/group/lingshi/topic/2648464

I too am curious about these snacks.

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freddy1705

Thats the one! My guess is that it is a Taiwanese (Minnan) expression written in charakters. "Ka" is a common syllable in Taiwanese. But then "niē" means "to pinch" so the charakters might be used for meaning and not for their sound alone. Anyway, It means something that is commonly done to children and the sentence advises to be less forceful when doing it. If i am right about this, and I think I am because the first part means that "you should maintain affection under your (punishing) hand", I find this very disturbing to say the least...

My inner cultural relativist shuts down when it comes to mistreatment of children.

I have seen countless more traditionally minded Taiwanese grandparents pinch children really hard-sometimes making them cry. Admittedly they did so with a great deal of affection but the children did not seem to enjoy it...

Just for the record: I personally know great Taiwanese parents and grandparents and horrible ones here in Germany.

Back to the snacks: You are supposed to crush the package to break the content into little pieces. On the backside it tells you how not to do it e.g. run over the package with a car, crush it with your head karate style etc.

捏卡 Taiwanese or Mandarin? anyone? CP Teachers out there to the rescue.

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suansuanru

I asked some taiwanese,they told me that 捏卡is taiwan dialect. It means 轻一点捏。Some said 卡means "compare".So I guess"捏比较小点力"。

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freddy1705

Suansuanru,

as always thanks for your reply!always quick and always helpful. I think 用這種方式來懲罰小朋友是不對的, 而且表示父母在教育上的失敗! 輕一點捏是不夠的!多跟小朋友溝通來理解他的心思是唯一的方式. :-)

偶爾被女兒氣死但不會動手的阿賓爸爸