MUSIC WAKES MAN IN COMA

A 22-year-old coma patient in Guangzhou was woken from 10 days of stupor after a brain operation in February. Apparently the man, surnamed Ye, was woken by an overly cheerful guitarist whom the hospital had gotten to perform by his bedside. Okay, so while the hospital may be calling it “music therapy” and media outlet Southcn.com reported this as a happy news story, we here at TWOC remain skeptical. Apparently the song that woke Ye was sung in English and called “Every Morning You Greet Me.” Nobody wants to wake up to greet that. Nobody. Least of all someone who’d just been through brain surgery. - D.D.

The world isn’t fair, not by a long shot, and sometimes you BY SUN JIAHUI (孙佳孙佳慧慧need a scapegoat. In Chinese, we have a scape-wok as in 背黑锅( b8ih8igu4, carry the black wok on one’s back), because 锅 ( gu4) sounds like 过 ( gu7, mistake or fault). Colloquially, people often leave out the “black” and just say 背锅 ( b8igu4). For example: 她没做错什么，却替董事会背了锅。( T` m9i zu7 cu7 sh9nme, qu- t# d6ngsh#hu# b8i le gu4. She did nothing wrong, but carried the wok on behalf of the board.) Similarly, you have 接锅 ( ji8gu4), which literally means to “accept the wok,” as in, His predecessor screwed everything up, so he prepared to accept the wok before coming to power. (他的前任把事情搞得一团糟，所以他在上任之前就做好了接锅的准备。T` de qi1nr-n b2 sh#qing g2o de y# tu1n z`o, su6y@ t` z3i sh3ngr-n zh~qi1n ji& zu7 h2o le ji8gu4 de zh^nb-i.) Victims of scapegoating are sympathetic figures, so they can earn the heroic title of 接锅侠 ( ji8gu4xi1, wokaccepting knight). Though unfairly in most cases, they are always the ones taking responsibility with chivalric aplomb. However, let’s remember that for someone to accept the wok, someone has to give it away; for that, we have the expression, 甩锅 ( shu2igu4), meaning “throw off the wok,” or “throw the wok to somebody.” If a sports team loses, the coach might put all that blame on the players, so you might say: “The football team lost the match, and the coach did nothing but throw the wok to his players. (足球队输了比赛，可教练却只会甩锅给队员。Z%qi%du# sh$ le b@s3i, k0 ji3oli3n qu- zh@hu# shu2igu4 g0i du#yu1n.)” However, wok-throwing hardly ever works and you may have to take responsibility. For this, we have分锅 ( f8ngu4, distribute the wok), which roughly means to distribute blame, as in, The project has failed. It’s time for the team to distribute the wok. (项目已经失败了，现在是分锅的时候了。Xi3ngm& y@j~ng sh~b3i le, xi3nz3i sh# f8ngu4 de sh!hou le.) Sooner or later, the wok comes for us all. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, thus, sometimes, 天外飞锅( ti`n w3i f8i gu4), a wok just falls from heaven.