幸福

Today, I was browsing Tiktok at 12:23 AM (so, ten minutes ago), and I came across a profile bio with just two words: 幸福.

Now the owner of the profile is a young blonde girl, and based solely on first impressions, it wouldn't be outrageous to assume that maybe she wouldn't be the first person you'd go to if you ever needed a Chinese translator. So I didn't think much of it. After all, people get tattoos of Chinese characters all the time; overly-clichéd, at times nonsensical, they seem to derive significance from the sole fact of being foreign. Can you imagine if I got a giant tattoo that spelt H E A R T, right on the middle of my forearm? Maybe even in comic sans font? Can you imagine the kind of looks I would get every time I wore a short-sleeved shirt?

Anyways, my point being, I initially dismissed this choice of words as being entirely insignificant, randomly chosen from a catalogue of clichés. Within seconds, I was scrolling onto the next clip.

And then, I paused.

It's an interesting word, 幸福.

Oddly specific.

Maybe this was a conscious choice.

How do I explain this. Perhaps with a small anecdote to start. Over the weekend, my parents and I went to Ikea to buy curtain rods. They bought a new set of curtains recently, and it was quite heavy, much too heavy for our flimsy old curtain rod to handle; we needed thicker ones. Before approaching the sales attendant, my dad asked me how to say 粗, in English. Thick, I told him. But wait, he asked, doesn't that mean 厚? He's not wrong. This is where the semantics of languages becomes tricky to grasp. But it's also the best part of learning a new language, discovering concepts that you had no idea existed. Let me explain.

粗 means "thick", but only when describing cylindrical objects, like a curtain rod. (It can also describe texture, the equivalent of "rough"). However, if you're describing something with a flat surface, you use 厚 to mean thick, like a textbook. Concepts are always best explained through food, and noodles are the perfect way to bring these two words together.

If you're eating 刀削面, which are the flat knife shaven noodles, you might describe them as 厚. If you're eating 拉面, the noodles that are stretched and twisted into the perfect diameter, you might describe them as 粗. Maybe this is all excessive detail to tell you about, but I find it fascinating. Concepts are born out of language; language provides us with the ability to classify observations by binding them together through a common word. I wonder if we would be able to derive more from our surroundings if only we had the vocabulary to allow us to notice them. Isn't this amazing, how the subtleties of language can shape our perception?

I could talk about this for ages, but that's not the point of this story.

So here I was, thinking about this word, 幸福.

If you speak Chinese, you might understand my struggle to capture the essence of this word.

It's hard to explain, and so I'll start by breaking it down.

幸 means luck. 福 means blessing. But together, these characters mean much more than "lucky blessing", it's a different concept entirely.

幸福 is hard to describe, even in Chinese.

The closest thing to 幸福 for me, is making dumplings with my family. The three of us huddled around the kitchen table, elbow to elbow; my dad rolling the dough while my mom and I make the dumplings. It's almost guaranteed that I my mom and I will start bickering about how much filling to put in, while my dad will go on and on about how we either made too much dough or too much filling. You'd think after a decade, we would have perfected this process, but it's always the same routine; I wouldn't have it any other way. To me, that's 幸福.

So is it familiarity then? Is it the feeling of being at ease? I still don't know. For me, there seems to be a component of togetherness, of being around other people, that is absolutely necessary for the existence of this concept.

I don't think I'll have an answer for you tonight. But I'll leave you with this thought.

In China, people don't often say the word "love". I don't know why, maybe it makes people uncomfortable to say these things out loud. But we all know what it feels like, we've felt it. And in those moments, it is the words 幸福 that you hear.