The first Chinese word you need to know in Taiwan — ‘buhaoyisi’
It is the most used word in Taiwan. When you were walking through the people to find your seat in the theatre, making a public speech but accidentally made some minor mistakes or asking the price of a bubble tea, you can say ‘buhaoyisi’ in all of these situations.
Photo by Yu-Heng Chiu on Unsplash
So, what does it mean? Well, it depends. It’s kind of like sorry or excuse me in the western world but still, far limit the expression to the notion of it. It represents several meanings:
- sorry
- excuse me
- an opening of a conversation/speech (like a sorry to interrupt someone)
- thank you (for the inconvenience that I’ve caused you)
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Confucianism
It’s the most used word in Taiwan and all of the expressions of it represent the culture of us — polite, humble, friendly, thoughtful, and easygoing. They can be attributed to Confucianism and preserving social cohesion.
Japan’s Colonisation
Decades of Japan’s Colonisation, we shared a part of the same common history. Buhaoyisi has been influenced heavily by ‘sumimasen’ culture. A habit of saying buhaoyisi could help confrontations from escalating further.
Do you really need to say it?
Actually, this habit isn’t that good in some circumstances. For instance, when you are negotiating with your business competitors, just by saying buhaoyisi as an opening could make yourself in an unfavourable position.
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