“小鸟”牌香烟

我妈仗着自己聪明，在汉话和哈萨克语之间胡乱翻译，还创造出了无数新词汇，极大地误导了本地牧人对汉语的理解。实在是可气。

My mom, relying on her own cleverness, randomly translated between Mandarin and Kazakh, even creating countless new terms that greatly misled the local herders' understanding of Chinese. It was truly infuriating.

我穿了一件新衣服回家，一路上遇到的女人都会过来扯住袖子捏一捏：“呀，什么布料啊？这么亮？”

I returned home wearing a new outfit, and every woman I encountered along the way would come over, grab my sleeve, and pinch it: "Wow, what kind of fabric is this? It's so shiny!"

“是……”我想了又想，最后说出它的准确名称，“丝光棉的。”

"It's..." I thought for a while and finally said its accurate name, "mercized cotton."

“丝光棉？”

"Mercized cotton?"

“对，丝光棉。但其实不是棉，是一种化纤。”

"Yes, mercized cotton. But actually, it's not cotton; it's a kind of synthetic fiber."

“化……纤？”

"Synthetic... fiber?"

“对，也就是过去说的那种料子布，腈纶啊涤纶啊之类。”

"Yes, it's what used to be called that kind of fabric, like acrylic or polyester."

“腈纶？涤纶？”

"Acrylic? Polyester?"

她便疑惑而苦恼地走了。

With confusion and frustration, she walked away.

而我妈呢，会斩钉截铁地回答：“塑料的！”

As for my mom, she would firmly reply, "It's plastic!"

“哦——”立刻了然。

"Oh—" Instant understanding.

一个小伙子来店里买香烟，要“小鸟”牌的。

A young man came into the store to buy "Little Bird" brand cigarettes.

我问了好几遍，的确是“小鸟”，而且那两个字还是发音极标准的普通话。

I asked several times, and indeed it was "Little Bird," and those two characters were pronounced in perfectly standard Mandarin.

但是我在货架上极其有限的几种香烟里搜索了好几遍后——

But after searching through the extremely limited selections of cigarettes on the shelf several times—

“我们没有‘小鸟’烟。”

"We don't have 'Little Bird' cigarettes."

“有的！那里那里！”

"Yes, you do! Right there!"

我顺着他指的地方一看，什么啊！那是“相思鸟”！

I looked where he pointed, and what the heck! It was "Lovesick Bird!"

一来“小鸟”和“相思鸟”在读音上稍稍相近，二来烟盒上的确印了只小鸟，所以嘛……

Firstly, "Little Bird" and "Lovesick Bird" are slightly phonetically similar, and secondly, there was indeed a small bird printed on the cigarette box, so...

再想想看，就凭我们这点哈语水平，要想给乡亲们解释“相思”为何物，并且还要解释这“相思”何以与“鸟”联系到一起……实在难于爬蜀道。

Thinking back, given our limited skills in Kazakh, how could we explain to the locals what "lovesickness" is, and how this "lovesickness" relates to "bird"... it was as hard as climbing the Shu Road.

所以我妈虽然粗枝大叶、办事轻率，总算还较能符合当地生产生活实际的。

So even though my mom was rough and careless, she at least somewhat matched the practical production and living situation of the local people.

但是又有一天隔壁小姑娘来买“砰砰”。

But another day, a little girl from next door came to buy "Bang Bang."

一头雾水。

Completely at a loss.

“什么东西？”

"What is it?"

“砰！砰！”

"Bang! Bang!"

“什么砰砰？”

"What Bang Bang?"

“就是砰砰，砰砰砰！”

"Just Bang Bang, Bang Bang Bang!"

拿给她榔头，摇摇头；再给她拿一把钉子，仍然不是。

I gave her a hammer, and she shook her head; then I offered her a handful of nails, but it still wasn’t right.

只好微笑着对她说：“我们家没有鞭炮卖，也没有核桃卖。”

I could only smile at her and say, "We don't sell firecrackers or walnuts."

“不是的！”小姑娘胳膊长，干脆自己把手伸进柜台里取……原来是瓶子为手雷形状的白酒……不用说，又是我妈的杰作。

"That's not it!" The little girl had long arms, and without hesitation, she reached into the counter herself to grab... it turned out to be a bottle shaped like a grenade... No need to say, it was another of my mom's masterpieces.

早先在夏牧场的时候，她发明的词汇“喀啦（黑色）蘑菇”，即“木耳”（阿尔泰深山森林里生长有野木耳），音节响亮，易懂好记，一直被当地人民沿用到现在，并且范围越来越广，几乎横跨了全地区六县一市。

Earlier, when we were at the summer pasture, the term she invented "Kala (black) mushroom," referring to "wood ear" (wild wood ear mushrooms grow in the Altai deep forest), was catchy, easy to understand, and has been used by the local people ever since, even spreading widely across the entire region of six counties and one city.

此外老人家还自作主张翻译了“金鱼”—— “金子的鱼”， “孔雀”—— “大尾巴漂亮鸟”。

In addition, my mom arbitrarily translated “goldfish” as "fish of gold," "peacock" as "bird with a big beautiful tail."

我们家卖烟除了“相思鸟”，还有“红雪莲”、“青城”、“哈德门”等等。对此我妈懒得再作创意，于是除“小鸟”烟以外，其他的烟一律被称为“红色烟”、“绿色烟”、“白色烟”及“黄色烟”。

We sold cigarettes not only "Lovesick Bird," but also "Red Snow Lotus," "Qingcheng," "Hademen," etc. For these, my mom couldn't be bothered to come up with creative names anymore, so besides "Little Bird" cigarettes, the others were all referred to simply as "red cigarettes," "green cigarettes," "white cigarettes," and "yellow cigarettes."

如果有两种烟的包装纸同为白色，则区别为“这边的白色烟”和“那边的白色烟”。

If two types of cigarettes had white packaging paper, they were distinguished as "this side's white cigarettes" and "that side's white cigarettes."

我妈还用奇怪的方法传授给了当地牧民很多外来名词，什么“抱窝鸡”啊，“三开肩式西服”啊，植物的“休眠期”啊什么什么的。

My mom also taught the local herders many foreign terms in strange ways, like "brooding hen," "three-piece suit," "dormant period" of plants, and so on.

之所以说“奇怪”，是因为本来就很奇怪——这么复杂，甚至是这么深奥的事儿，她怎么就能干净利落地让人豁然而知呢？……更奇怪的是，牧民又不养鸡，知道了“抱窝鸡”又有什么用？

The reason I say "strange" is that it's inherently odd—how could she manage to explain such complex or even profound matters so neatly and understandably? ...More oddly, the herders don’t even raise chickens, so what use is it to know what a "brooding hen" is?