chinaman fish

By | 15 February 2023

It’s a pain
Not in the arse
Not in the neck
Not even in the fingers
Searching for the word, e.g. in an online Chinese dictionary
Called youdao, Having the Way
In which the words, Chinaman Fish, is defined as
Miaomang Yu, an uncertain fish
Or distant fish, or if you rely on the expression
Xiwang miaomang, little hope or hopeless
You may arrive at the conclusion that it is
A hopeless fish
All, might I say, are correct
Even in this incorrect age
Trying to be correct in every sense
Of the word
One wonders why it was not called an ‘Australianman fish’
In the first place
Or an ‘Englandman fish’
Or an ‘Americanman fish’
Why, of all the appellations, Chinaman fish
Amazingly, though, there are no definitions for it
In a number of online Chinese dictionaries
Such as n 词酷 or 爱词霸 or 沪江小 d
Or even 海词词典, an ocean of words
None of one’s business
Although one fishes easily from one’s memory
This poisonous specimen from the Queensland seas
Where, one speculates, 150 years or so ago
A Chinaman, unable to bear all the Australian
Harshness and hardness and haplessness
Turned into a fish
Who swam loud enough to wake the living
‘Chinaman Fish, I am
the Chinaman Fish’
Till all the English dictionaries
Capture him
In their wordloads

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