“Long time no see” is a very interesting sentence . When I first read this sentence from an American friend’s email, I laughed . I thought it was a perfect example of Chinglish .
Obviously , it is a word-by-world literal translation of the Chinese greetings with a ruled English grammar and structure ! Later on, my friend told me that it is a standard American greeting , I was too thrilled to believe her . Her words could not convince me at all . So I did a research on google .com . To my surprise , there are over 60 thousand web pages containing “ Long time no see.” This sentence has been widely used in emails , letters , newspapers, movies , books , or any other possible place . Though it is sort of informal, it is part of the language that Americans use daily . Ironically , if you type this phrase in Microsoft Word , the soft-ware will tell you that the grammar needs to be corrected .
Nobody knows the origin of this Chinglish sentence . Some people believe that it came from Charlie Chan’s movies . In the 1930s, Hollywood moviemakers successfully created a world-wide famous Chinese detective named “Charlie Chan” on wide screens . Detective Chan likes to teach Americans some Chinese wisdom by quoting Confucius . “Long time no see” was his trademark . Soon after Charlie Chan , “Long time no see” became a popular phrase in the real world with thanks to the popularity of these movies .
Some scholars refer America as a huge pot of stew (染缸). All kinds of culture are mixed in the stew together , and they change the color and taste of each other . American Chinese , though a minority ethnic group in the United States , is also contributing some changes to the stew !Language is usually the first thing to be influenced in the mixed stew .
You can have some other examples than adoptions from Chinese , such as pizza from Italian , susi from Japanese , and déjá vu from French etc . There is a long list ! Americans do not just simply borrow something from others . They will modify it and make it their own , so you would not be surprised to find a tofu and peanut butter hamburger in a restaurant , or to buy a bottle of iced Chinese green tea with honey in a grocery store . Since Americans appreciate Chinese culture more and more nowadays , I believe more Chinese words will become American English in the future . In this way the American stew keeps adding richness and flavor .
1．The writer himself felt surprised at .
A．reading “Long time no see”
B．knowing the expression is standard American English
C．seeing the literal translation of the expression
D．finding out Americans use the expression every day