So what the heck does that title mean? Such was the mystery for a few hours today as I realized just how terrible my Chinese is. I think I can communicate on a literal level with people, like the way a kindergartener can tell you that he likes blue better than yellow in the crayon box. Beyond that, anything remotely resembling literature, and all you would get from me is a completely blank stare, and maybe if you get me drunk enough, I will venture a guess by making up something ridiculous as I pretend to know something that I don’t.

So an old friend of mine puts “爱你, 非你莫属” as her gstatus, which “gstatus” in and of itself was a new word added to my vocabulary just today (okay people, I admit; I am getting old; i no longer follow the life and times of youngsters hip with the newest instant messaging technology). I looked at it, and I thought … “well, i know the first two characters, and I can pronounce the next three, but I really have no idea what it means. Dang, her Chinese is so much better than mine.”

I ventured to ask her “Girl, wth does your gchat away message-like thingy mean?” (I am young enough to know and use acronyms like “wth”). Turns out, she didn’t know either. Thus began a search that spanned hours as we asked friends, friends of friends, our mothers even, to figure out just what those silly few characters really meant.

Turns out, those characters mean “love me, and I will belong to you solely.” Let’s everybody hold hands now and altogether say “awwwwwwww.”

Yes folks, that is what it means. We, both being the girls that we are, melted knowing the true meaning of pretty words that we could somewhat pronounce but not understand. We, both being the non-native speakers that we try to deny being, recognized the true limitations of our language skills.

That made me rather sad, how terrible I am at my “native” language. But then again, not really. Because when did I ever understand poetry even in English? I don’t. You have to literally spell things out for me. Metaphors just don’t work with my brain. Sorry. Good literature is pretty much a wasted effort on me.