It itches! It itches!

a.k.a., fun with language

In China we were lucky enough to go to a hot springs resort (off season=good deals) that featured a series of hot spring pools that you could immerse yourself in. There was a ginseng pool, a mint pool, an ice pool, etc. One of the pools contained little carvnivorous turkey fish that would nibble on you while you sat there. When I first put my feet in, the fish rushed for my toes and started biting. The bites weren't painful (my cousin Jim referred to them as little fishy kisses) so much as ticklish and I started giggling. Jim kept asking me, in Cantonese, whether it itched. I kept saying no, since I was laughing, not scratching.

Turns out that in Mandarin, the way to ask if something tickles is to ask if it's itchy because there is no word for ticklish in Mandarin. In Cantonese, the dialect that my family and I speak (some of us better than others), there is a word for the verb "to tickle" and a term for "ticklish", which roughly translates to "flesh/meat sour". The Canadian cousins in turn taught Jim the adjective "ticklish", which he duly wrote down.

I did eventually lower my entire body, up to my neck, into the fish pool. The full immersion experience was not ticklish, just neat. The fish seemed to like me; one kept nibbling at my belly button.