It's All In The Delivery!

My friend, Tracy, and her husband, Hua, are expecting their first child. For the last three weeks I have been calling the baby "xiao qi ji" which, in Chinese, means "little miracle." Or so I thought. I was in Tracy’s apt. Sunday evening and a couple of our friends dropped by. One of them is also Chinese. I told her proudly that I refer to the baby as "xiao qi ji." She gave me a confused look and then looked at Hua, who repeated exactly what I said. Or so I thought. She said, in English, "Oh, little miracle." I said, with just a touch of indignation, "Yes, that’s what I said so why didn’t you understand me?" She smiled and said, "Well, qi ji (pronounced "chee jee") also means "penis" (if you say "jee jee" instead of "chee jee" and trust me, they are very similar). My mouth dropped open and I said, "You mean I’ve been calling the baby ‘little penis’ and you didn’t tell me!!!!" Everyone laughed. Apparently, I wasn’t ALWAYS saying it incorrectly and since they knew what I meant, Tracy and Hua were too polite to tell me that sometimes I was calling their little baby a "penis." I swore right then and there never to call the baby "little miracle" (at least not in Chinese) again. It’s all in the way you say it and I just can’t be sure I’ll say it correctly. To give you an example of the complexity of the tones in the Chinese language, the word "shi" (pronounced "sure") means "is," "busy," and the number "ten," depending on the tone you make when you say it. Who knows how many other meanings there are for "shi." Can you just see me living in Beijing and having successfully hailed a cab or ordered exactly what I want to eat in a restaurant, confidently exclaim, "It’s a miracle!" but it comes out all wrong and I’ve just shouted out, "It’s a penis!" No, I don’t think so. It will now be the first word on my list of Chinese words never to use. Perhaps I should learn the word for "vagina".......just in case.