You Stink Pretty

Yesterday in the midst of a jovial conversation, a friend jokingly referred me as 臭美. I know since birth my skin is as thick as the rhino, but this new Chinese phrase seem rather interesting to me. 'Cos my standard of Chinese vocabulary is at level zero, and I would actually see those two words as really just two different words put together. When I looked up the Chinese dictionary, I have to find meanings to the other words describing these two words! But very vaguely, I think it means you stink pretty.

Now how does one stink pretty? Its like having two similar poles of a magnet put together, they just won't gel. If you stink, you stink! You cannot be pretty and stink, can you? Scientifically, its almost impossible. I never heard of Julia Roberts having bad body odour.The only humanly possible scenario where you can stink and still be pretty is in Bollywood, India. If one of those gorgeous voluptuous Indian actress gets on a crowded non-airconditioned bus and she has that coconut oil as hair mousse, that I can assure, you will fully appreciate the meaning of 臭美!

So I was browsing the dictionary and then I chanced upon another phrase ..... 坏死. You are bad and you are dead! And you always hear this when a girl says it playfully to a guy. But to me that's a curse. You are bad, and you might as well be dead! Or better still, you are bad and you better reincarnate as an egg after you are dead. So they invented this phrase 坏蛋. Its hard to imagine why we want them to return as an egg.

But the egg is also used in other curses. Like 臭鸡蛋. You stinking chicken egg! I have no idea why the chicken is being used here and not other animals in the farm. In these times of extreme shortage and skyrocketing egg prices, I think its better we show some respect to the poultry industry. But if you can't be bothered and you want to add more power to this curse, you can bring in his mother, and thus the phrase 他妈的臭鸡蛋!