毛毛虫

[chinese lover]

Recently, I came across some text in which two lovers addressed each other as 毛毛虫.

The only meaning I can find from searches is "caterpillar". Why would lovers use this? Is there some slang usage - maybe for a term similar to the English "sweetheart" perhaps?

[leeyah]

"Honey" sounds more like it, because the story behind the word symbolizes 爱情的甜蜜.

[jbradfor]

And what is the story behind the word? Inquiring minds want to know!

[leeyah]

Reeeeally?!

Hmmm... well, will this do?

自从我遇见了你，心里就爬进一条毛毛虫

虫虫乐张越大，把我的心咬了一个小洞洞

是否你的心里也有，像我这样的一条毛毛虫

等到春暖花开，虫虫就会相逢

毛毛虫呀毛毛虫，你刺得我好疼。

毛毛虫呀毛毛虫，你把我的心掏空

毛毛虫呀毛毛虫，你让我发了疯

毛毛虫呀毛毛虫，你是我的美梦

[jbradfor]

uggg, that sounds more creepy than romantic. If I'm reading this correctly, the first two lines are saying that ever since he(?) saw her(?), he love (well, lust probably) has been like a caterpillar living in his heart, growing and eating and making a hole. Sounds more like a parasite to me!

OK, the rest is a bit better, waiting for warm spring for their love to bloom (in analogy for a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, likely).

[leeyah]

You got it! This doesn't necessarily mean that Chinese are less romantic, if you give it a bit more thought, but I can understand the culture shock the lyrics gave you (they were meant to ) & I can imagine that different people will interpret them each in his own way.

Whatever, in the West we grow up with all the 白马王子/白马公主 romantic BS. In China, traditionally, the ideas of love/romance & also 男女 friendship in 彼此永远不会分离 context, seem to be somewhat more practical, i.e. nature-oriented, and so animals (mandarin duck) & insects (butterfly) happen to be symbols of love (which BTW is good to know, otherwise you may miss the love of your life (we don't want this to happen do we?) or worse, if you fail to interpret the signs you may find yourself in an embarrassing situation with someone you may not consider as a date at all (!!)

Anyway, the original love-story is actually very romantic and touching, but then Chinese love stories usually are 感人的故事 , so 蒲公英毛毛虫一对恋人 briefly：a dandelion (蒲公英) falls in love with a caterpillar (毛毛虫) who finds it hard to believe that anyone can love such an ugly being like himself, but he's happy to know. In due time 毛毛虫 turns into a beautiful butterfly, and 不告而别, flies away. When he returns in the body of a butterfly, overjoyed to see himself looking so beautiful, he discovers the dandelion, whose love actually gave him "wings" to fly, is gone (blown away with the wind, 随风远去了) and there's only the stem left.

没有了幸福，拥有“美丽”又有什么用呢？

...so the butterfly dies in sadness united with the stem of the dandelion, from which it then sprouts as a beautiful 蝴蝶花, waiting to meet his love again - without even knowing that they have become one body already, together, forever:

最后，他竟变成了一朵蝴蝶花，与蒲公英的根茎合为了一体，真的永远不会分离了。他相信蒲公英一定会再回来的。

Romantic enough, isn't it?

PS: a cute picture, for those of us who are still children at heart:

Edited September 19, 2009 at 10:02 AM by leeyah

[jbradfor]

POP! That explosion you just heard was the sound of exceeding an engineer's romance tolerance

Actually, that is a sweet story. I like it a lot more than the closest western equivalent, the story of the ugly duckling. I've always disliked the ugly duckling story, thinking it teaches a bad moral: people like you only if you're beautiful.

So based on these stories, if one uses 毛毛虫 as a term of endearment, is one saying that you love the person even though they're not very good looking? Or is that part of the story forgotten?

[leeyah]

You shouldn't take it too literally. It's more like you love someone for some special reason, unconditionally, for who he really is as a person, regardless of all else, at least that's how I see it.