Chinese New Year: Handy Phrases For Dining At A Chinese Restaurant With Kids
The best thing about starting a new calendar year in Singapore is that if you have a bit of a stuff up – say you spend the first night on an aeroplane with two restless children, one of whom falls sick shortly after landing, and spend the first two weeks of the new year alternately mopping up vomit and fielding requests from your P1 child for books you were apparently supposed to have sent yesterday only you don’t seem to have got them in your book bundle and you haven’t been provided with a title but he knows what they look like and the first one has a picture of a yellow ball on the front, or it might be a round, yellow plate* – you can have a do-over in February at Chinese New Year.
The worst thing about Chinese New Year: no do-over. It’s vitally important, therefore, to get that one right. And I’m here to help! This FREE printable language guide gives you plenty of time to prepare for a meal out with the kids as you welcome the Year Of The Goat this February. Provided in simplified Chinese characters, with a pinyin pronunciation guide, cultural notes, and English translations, it’ll give you the phrases you need in a format you can use.
Handy Phrases To Use When Dining In A Chinese Restaurant – With Kids! – This Spring Festival
My backup plan is to have us all break into this song:
.
Footnotes and related:
*It was a sun.
**A quick internet search reveals I’m not the only one to accidentally mis-pronounce the word “pen” in Chinese with embarrassing consequences.
All about Yusheng.
Official invitation to correct my Chinese:
Please do so.
Admission that I did use google translate to complete parts of this post:
I know, it’s really that bad.
I have never celebrated Chinese New Year before, but intend to this year since it’s my year — Year of the Sheep! This guide will come in handy, so thanks. 🙂
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(I hate to think which bits you think will come in handy. Hopefully more the top part?)
You should absolutely have a banquet this year. Coming up quickly – book your table now!
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I personally think those were all excellent phases. I would add:
“I’m sorry the tablet/phone/iPad is too loud, I’ll have them turn it down.”
“Do you have a divided plate so the food won’t touch?”
“Do you have a cup with lid and straw? It will greatly reduce the number of napkins we need.”
“Can you make X on the menu, but without W, Y and Z?”
“Eff it, can you just make plain noodles? “
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Ha – I love #2. Wow. Exactly and precisely.
Plain noodles might not be a strange request, though. That one should be a proper serious one. 🙂
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This is going to come in handy! Please YouTube your family breaking out in song 😉
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I did at one stage promise a youtube video of a song. Hm. And then never followed through…
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Firstly, sorry for the nasty vomiting. Vomiting for kids=hell for mum so commiserations. Secondly this is great! I wish we had it with us when we went to China. We would have used the KFC reference plenty. I left China grateful they had a KFC otherwise my eldest wouldn’t have eaten AT ALL. Pinned and shared xx
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Thank goodness for fast food! I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t travel with kids. Sometimes it’s just good to be able to give them something they’ll eat without a battle. Mine eat well enough at home that I don’t mind admitting to the odd KFC or similar when we’re away.
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Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I love “we can find the exit ourselves thank you.”
I’m relieved you were helped by Google here, otherwise most of us would have been left feeling inferior. So thank you 🙂
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I may have translated that one rather loosely 🙂 And I have an inbox worth of corrections to save me from any feelings of superiority! So don’t worry on that front. 🙂
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lol great statements!! It’s weird to think these could come in useful now we are in Penang. Something tells me I will stick to hand movements and gestures though!
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Oh go on, give them a go. For the adventure! At least the song?
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Excellent post Bronwyn. Thanks for the laughs and the translation chart, although I’m sure my pronounciations don’t do them justice. 🙂
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By contrast, my pronunciations are hilarious 😉
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Great song – if only I could sing along!
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Play it a few more times. I guarantee you’ll be all over it by Chinese New Year. 🙂
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I love this! I love the sound of Mandarin. 🙂 Chinese new year will be quite busy here I am sure, I am excited for the festivites… And possibly printing out this hanfy guide to speak with the Chinese tourists. 🙂
Seriously though, restaurants should give at least 100 serviettes when they see children at a table… Maybe even more. 🙂 Why are they always so stingy with them?
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I have been to a couple of places who have piled on the serviettes after noting the kids. Some wait staff have kids of their own, you can tell! But yes, it should be written into company policy!
Wait til I’ve had a chance to go through the helpful reader corrections before printing, though 🙂
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Ok. 🙂 will do!
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You’ll have to do a Thai version too, of course 🙂
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Hahaha… That is a long time off, and thankfully, they usually have napkins (ok a roll of toilet paper) on the tables.
Mine would probably have to include asking the staff where they are leading your child off to. 🙂
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Haha – I can absolutely see that.
“Where are you taking my child?”
“Are you sure you want to show him the kitchen? Where you have fire?”
“That’s an unnecessary question. She has a basically endless desire for sweet treats.”
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Perfect!
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Sounds like an episode of Outnumbered, a British TV show about family life shared with three kids.
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Is that in Chinese? I can’t remember.
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You forgot “who’s child is this? Why is he/she sitting next to me?” 😉
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Ha! Yes, you’re right.
What? We don’t even have children!
Does anybody have a phone so we can call someone to find this child’s parents?
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Brilliant and funny! I am going to go to a chinese restaurant and have a go…love the song!
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I am currently trying to get the song out of my head after singing it for about 48hrs straight. It did stand up well initially but it’s gone too far, now…
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Ha ha!!
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OMG I am still singing it…
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It haunted my dreams last night!
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You are amazing! And, just stop at table 1, forget about the other two. Though, many are nicely translated;).
Oh, on yusheng, it is 鱼生- Simply means, raw fish.
Happy New Year!!!
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Gah! I knew I was going to get something wrong. Apparently there’s several others I need to look at (according to my email inbox). I hope to get around to an update this weekend. Thanks for the correction!
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Amazing! I would love to hear you speaking it! Dutch has me befuddled !
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(I’ll let you hear mine if you let me hear yours?)
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Sure and how would you like to arrange that 🙂
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Hmmm… Yeah. Since I am stupid, and can not read any but the english version of your helpful phrases, I think I’m just going to go to the Chinese restaurant down the street and order number 37.
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Also works. Just make sure number 37 isn’t “plain rice” and you’re trying to order it with plain rice. Might be a less-than-satisfying meal.
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Good point. I prefer fried rice with my plain rice.
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Exactly! 🙂
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As usual informative and hilarious! GONG XI FA CAI
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Gong xi fa cai! The music is starting up in the shopping centres here. I’ll have it stuck in my head before too long.
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Quite funny. And after all that I would return to “Something stronger than green tea.” 🙂 –Curt
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That stuff can be dangerous for the uninitiated. Especially if drunk in endless toasts from those little glasses. Give me a dash of red wine any day – I know where I am (and how much to drink) with that!
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Wouldn’t know, Bronwyn, never having tried it. But I’ll take your recommendation. 🙂 –Curt
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Well be warned then! Go easy…
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There is definitely the potential here to expand your phrase list into a full-fledged guide book, with handy translations for multiple languages. While in Italy, we could have used some bike-themed phrases in the local language such as “Sorry, he doesn’t usually run into people like that,” “Yes, we know it is customary to ride on the right side of the bike path” and “Sorry, we didn’t realize that frantic bell-ringing after dark on a residential street is frowned upon.” Maybe safest to start this series in Dutch, but it could definitely come in handy in Chinese-speaking places too 🙂
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Haha! I want to see your contribution to this guide book. You can take Italy and Holland. You seem to have a good start on it already. 🙂
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hahahahhaaha! I’ll admit that it started out so nice and innocent that I thought that only my kid acted up in restaurants…. it’s nice to see that others struggle and how sweet of you to offer the translations! bwhahahahahaha!
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Ha. Only your kid. Never. I’m sure many families use these phrases all the time when dining out 🙂
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Brilliant – got funnier and funnier as I kept reading! 🙂
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Happy new year! Thanks 🙂
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As always Bronwyn you make me laugh hysterically. As well as get on my knees and be thankful my children are grown. 🙂
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You can get up now – I’m sure you’ve done your time down there looking for dropped forks and spoons over the years 🙂
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Haha true enough. My 27 year old daugter just put a TBT photo on Facebook of her and her teenage friends drinking in our basement. Oi vay! 🙂
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Not an event you witnessed at the time? 🙂
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Nope! 🙂
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Ok, I should be able to pronounce the word correctly, but not sure about the tone… I’ll bring my own pen, I guess. (cool song) (got up to get a glass of water, decided to go online a bit… I should really go back to bed now)
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BYO pen – a brilliant solution to an all-too-common problem. 🙂
Definitely should resist the internet during midnight wanderings. Sounds like something I’d do. Hope you got some good rest after that!
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You are right… I ended up staying online for more than an hour. It took me maybe another hour to go back to sleep… so sleepy now.
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Morning Mum curses Midnight Mum once again…
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Brilliant!
The cushions are always expensive and hard to get hold of. Gonzo is the best stain remover in the world though.
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Gonzo? Where do I get Gonzo? Is this something that should go on the souvenir list of every parent who visits the UK?
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Absolutely! I was told about it by a stylist after I told her that my dad had spilt coffee on Boo’s new school shirts before term had even started. I now stockpile whenever I go to John Lewis. I haven’t been beaten by a stain yet.
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I’m writing this down. Writing it down. With my pen.
(Ok so I’m not literally writing it with a pen but thanks for the tip – we do have a big trip coming up this year and that advice might come in handy…)
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Haha, what a great list! I think I will need to use almost all of those phrases….
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Good luck. I take no responsibility for any mispronunciations of the word “pen”.
(I seriously have that song stuck in my head from the end there.)
(Why are you still awake??)
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Oh, my! I’m laughing…with you! It’s hard enough to take children out to eat at a restaurant where I speak the language fluently! Thanks for the primer on Chinese New Year! I’ll start practicing…
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Sometimes I think it’s an advantage to NOT speak the language fluently. Although some forms of body language are readily interpretable…
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