Literally, yes. It also means “miss”, but we wouldn’t say “I saw a miss in the elevator”.
The way Westerners tend to use it here, it refers to young or youngish local women. I wouldn’t refer to a foreign woman as a “xiaojie”. The word “xiaojie” also covers a different (yet overlapping) age range compared to “young woman” - many women in their 50s can be “xiaojie” in Chinese but not “young woman” in English.
[color=red]
Standard disclaimers apply.[/color]
Well, if you add an adjective like ‘young’ or ‘pretty’ it’s not uncolloquial.
“As I was going up Pippin Hill, Pippin Hill was dirty, There I met a pretty miss, And she dropped me a curtsey.”
“There was a young miss from Nantucket…” 
And even without the adjective:
There once was a miss from Bel Air,
Who was fondling her man on the stair.
When the banister broke,
She doubled her stroke,
And finished him off in mid-air.
[quote=“smell the glove”]An Eskimo woman standing next to you alone at a bus stop points at a cloud and casually remarks, “Good thing that isn’t filled with airplanes.”
Do you
a) Burst out laughing, agree wholeheartedly, then respond with a ribald comment about polar bears
b) Politely ask her what the fuck she’s talking about, maybe even twice, then when it becomes no clearer, wait there in awkward silence hoping she’ll just disappear[/quote]
Hehe.
:bravo:
As do lass, lassie, filly, maiden, colleen, damsel, demoiselle, wench, gal, nymph, cummer, chick, bird and many other colourful alternatives, the use of which can add multiple shades of meaning and expressiveness to our speech and writing. [/quote]
Most of those are English words…a few I didn’t understand and assume are French or something. But “xiaojie” isn’t generally understood among English-speakers. Also, to my knowledge, it doesn’t, outside your fervent imagination, carry any particular connotations that the words “young Taiwanese woman,” which everyone knows, can’t express just as well. I still don’t understand the purpose of using it in an English-language conversation.[/quote]
All of these can be found in a dictionary of English synonyms. They are all considered to belong to the English language now. One day, perhaps, after Chinese has become a global lingua franca on a par with English (as I believe it surely will), many words such as xiaojie are likely also to be absorbed into everyday English. [But on a side note, does anyone know if xiaojie is commonly used in China now in much the same way as it is in Taiwan?]
And no, the word xiaojie is not generally understood or used by English speakers outside Taiwan, but I’m pretty sure it’s used and well understood by the overwhelming majority of English speakers living in Taiwan - the people being addressed in these forums.
As Chris has remarked, xiaojie is generally used by expatriates to refer to Taiwanese woman as distinct from foreigners. Although it is used by locals to refer to women of all ages, it is generally used by foreigners to refer to younger and typically Taiwanese young women. Depending on the context, it may be appreciative or mocking. Therefore, it does have particular connotations that other words referring to young women don’t. It also has a delightful ring that makes it especially pleasurable to write and say.
I wonder, Poagoa, if you ever use the word buxiban when you’re speaking English, or if you always insist on referring to such places as “cram schools” or whatever?
The title of this thread should be changed to: I scared and embarrassed the utter and complete shite out of a total stranger today.
We live for these moments.
Damn that’s all I could fit…
It’s probably a cross-cultural/cross-linguistic mixup. When a translated joke in Chinese goes flat, it’s usually because what you thought you were saying was a perfect match for another phrase meaning “I poop in the eye sockets of your dead first-born”. Unfortunately, sometimes that is the punchline of an otherwise funny joke, but you have to be careful of tones and soundalike words all the time.
Also, although the “elevator is impatient” joke would have led to a fresh round of vodka in Finland or Sweden and perhaps even loud guffawing in Germany, it’s not exactly killer material in Taiwan. Think slapstick when you’re here. Let that elevator door clang shut on your noggin (while using artfully placed hands to block the door enough to prevent permanent damage) while loudly proclaiming: “Now that is an impatient elevator!” Bonus points if you brought something along that makes little cartoon sound effect noises to underline that you’re “joking”.
She’ll be on you like paint on a barn in no time! 
I find that the same stale jokes, if done in a Donald Duck voice, work great as pickup lines. 
[quote=“smell the glove”]An Eskimo woman standing next to you alone at a bus stop points at a cloud and casually remarks, “Good thing that isn’t filled with airplanes.”
Do you
a) Burst out laughing, agree wholeheartedly, then respond with a ribald comment about polar bears
b) Politely ask her what the fuck she’s talking about, maybe even twice, then when it becomes no clearer, wait there in awkward silence hoping she’ll just disappear[/quote]
How about:
c) Feel intrigued, smile, ask why and in general try to get into conversation on airplanes, clouds,
eskimo culture notions of humor etc. etc. etc.
…be a mature, selfconfident, open minded, interested in acquireing some knowledge or at very least a material
for an anecdote kind of person, I guess.
Likely this woman did not fall under this kind of category.
As do lass, lassie, filly, maiden, colleen, damsel, demoiselle, wench, gal, nymph, cummer, chick, bird and many other colourful alternatives, the use of which can add multiple shades of meaning and expressiveness to our speech and writing. [/quote]
Most of those are English words…a few I didn’t understand and assume are French or something. But “xiaojie” isn’t generally understood among English-speakers. Also, to my knowledge, it doesn’t, outside your fervent imagination, carry any particular connotations that the words “young Taiwanese woman,” which everyone knows, can’t express just as well. I still don’t understand the purpose of using it in an English-language conversation.[/quote]
All of these can be found in a dictionary of English synonyms. They are all considered to belong to the English language now. One day, perhaps, after Chinese has become a global lingua franca on a par with English (as I believe it surely will), many words such as xiaojie are likely also to be absorbed into everyday English. [But on a side note, does anyone know if xiaojie is commonly used in China now in much the same way as it is in Taiwan?]
And no, the word xiaojie is not generally understood or used by English speakers outside Taiwan, but I’m pretty sure it’s used and well understood by the overwhelming majority of English speakers living in Taiwan - the people being addressed in these forums.
As Chris has remarked, xiaojie is generally used by expatriates to refer to Taiwanese woman as distinct from foreigners. Although it is used by locals to refer to women of all ages, it is generally used by foreigners to refer to younger and typically Taiwanese young women. Depending on the context, it may be appreciative or mocking. Therefore, it does have particular connotations that other words referring to young women don’t. It also has a delightful ring that makes it especially pleasurable to write and say.
I wonder, Poagao, if you ever use the word buxiban when you’re speaking English, or if you always insist on referring to such places as “cram schools” or whatever?[/quote]
I hardly ever talk about them, as I’m not involved with them, but I usually tend to stick to English words when speaking in English, so yeah, I would say cram school or something like that.
All words and phrases can be appreciative or mocking, especially with different tones of voice, so I fail to see the difference there. I have no idea, however, what you can possibly mean by a “delightful ring that makes is especially pleasurable to write and say.”
Just curious: do female foreigners use “xiaojie” in English conversations the same way male foreigners do?
Why not run a poll for both sexes to answer?
Oh, ok.
Done.
Thanks!
No prob.
[quote]Bonus points if you brought something along that makes little cartoon sound effect noises to underline that you’re “joking”.
[/quote]
Why bother bringing something along? “Clang! Oweeee! BRAAAAAAP!”
“Oh, hee hee hee hee hee!”
Sphincters. It’s what they’re FOR.
[quote=“almas john”]I have to run off and do my yearly health check (i.e. be subjected to the indignation of having natives tell me to lose weight and drink less). Cheerio.[/quote]AJ -
The cheek!
Tell them you are doing your patriotic best to support Taiwans economy…and they are just too darn skinny!
[quote=“Buttercup”]NIHOW Poagao! Naruwan!
To answer your question, it COULD mean ‘young lady’, but it depends on the tones. You see, it could also meet ‘laughing street’.[/quote]
Or Little Street. Or Crazy Street. How about Owl Street? Desolate Street? Hollow Street? Vanishing Street? Filial Street? Whistling Street?
[quote=“Chris”]“電梯沒有耐心” - the elevator is impatient
Perhaps this confused the woman: impatience is a human quality, not a mechanical one. Though that would result in humor to an English speaker, it might just confuse a Chinese speaker, who is used to different forms of humor.
Or perhaps your phrasing was incomprehensible - I have no idea what exact Chinese words you used or what your level of Chinese is. But maybe it came out ungrammatical or with a thick accent, and she simply couldn’t understand you.[/quote]
I just asked my girlfriend how she thinks she’d react if someone said this to her in an elevator and she gave me a little giggle, so I guess it’s not just a Chinese/English thing. She always comes out with this kind of humour herself, like once when there were loads of boxes bouncing around at the back of the car she said ‘哇, 後面好熱鬧!’ I can’t think of a good way of translating that but it cracked me up. I’m easily pleased.
[quote=“ironlady”]I think you’re looking at this the wrong way.
What you said makes sense in English – we say things like that. People don’t often say things like that in Chinese. When you, as a foreigner, say something like that in Chinese, people have to stop and think, “Huh?” It’s not a matter of understanding the words or not – people just don’t tend to make that kind of comments in Chinese. So she was probably doing her best to come back with some sort of answer or response, and asking about the English word was probably friendly in her mind. You’re an expert, after all.
Chinese language humor is just not the same as English language humor.[/quote]
I don’t necessarily agree… there are loads of English/Americans/Canadians/French/what-have-you with completely different ideas of what is funny or not. If I make a comment about my car being ‘thirsty’ then about 60% of Taiwanese will get it as a joke and the other 40% are humourless wannabes who ‘correct’ my Chinese. I know enough Taiwanese whose humour is way sharper than mine to opine that the idea of sarcasm, personification or irony being completely lost in Taiwan is a myth.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]I chased a cat off of my patio roof with a super soaker.
Maybe it was looking for an elevator. I could not help it because my Chinese and my Taiwanese is very basic.
It acted…‘distant’…as it ran away.
Good morning.[/quote]
Now THAT’s what I call Classic Post Material.
I shall now go to sleep in a good mood for the first time in two weeks. Thanks TC 