That weird part of 活着/To Live with the chicken turning into a goat, etc...

[-葛亚辉-]

edit: I should clarify, the title of this thread refers to a spoken expression that Ge You uses a couple times....obviously, there is no chicken morphing in the movie!

Or whatever it is, I forget the exact progression, but it comes up twice, once when Fugui (Ge You) is carrying his son to the factory, and then once at the end explaining it to his grandson right before the credits roll....what is that about? is this an idiomatic expression, or what? I asked my Chinese teacher and she didn't know, but she is Taiwanese...I thought it might be a mainland expression and/or something that comes from communist propaganda...anyone know the full story on this?

[skylee]

You can easily find it on the internet by searching with the key words 活着, 雞長大了, 羊. Many of the websites that discuss the film and this dialogue are taiwanese websites, like this.

福貴：你看啊，咱們家現在也就是ㄧ只小雞，雞養大了就變成了鵝，鵝養大了就變成了羊，羊再養大了就變成了牛啦！

有慶：牛以後呢？

福貴：牛以後就是共產主義啦！就天天吃餃子，天天吃肉啦！

福貴：雞長大了就變成了鵝，鵝長大了就變成了羊，羊長大了就變成了牛！

饅頭：牛以後呢？

家珍：牛以後啊，饅頭就長大了。

饅頭：我要騎在牛背上。

家珍：對，饅頭就騎在牛背上。

福貴：饅頭長大了就不騎牛啦，就坐火車，做飛機。那個時候啊，日子就愈來愈好。

[-葛亚辉-]

yeah, but I don't read enough chinese (yet) to be able to look it up and understand what's going on in Chinese...and I can't really read fantizi anyway.

[gato]

It's a dialogue made by the Yu Hua, the author of the book on which the movie is based, or perhaps the screenwriter. It has nothing to do with the Taiwan/Mainland divide.

The Fu Gui character is saying "Our family is only a little chicken now, but it'll growing into a goose. The goose will grow into a goat. The goat will grow into a cow."

The kid asks, "What happens after the cow grows up?"

Fu Gui answers, "That's when we have Communism. We will eat meat and dumplings everyday!"

As for what it means, you'll need to think about it yourself, young grasshopper.

[-葛亚辉-]

Ok....I do know enough chinese to know what he was saying (and even if I didn't, I know how to read subtitles...), I was just wondering if it was a cultural reference to something that I was missing. Apparently, it isn't. Good to know, thanks.

[gato]

More of a Communism reference than a cultural reference.

[kdavid]

Fu Gui answers, "That's when we have Communism. We will eat meat and dumplings everyday!"

It should be noted that this is not in the original novel, but was an appropriation made during the novel - movie transition.

In the novel, Fu Gui grows old and alone with only an ox to keep him company. Everyone else in the novel dies.