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Originally Posted by new coup for you  After hearing pathetic non-Western insults for years (particularly asian; "your mother is a turtle", etc.) I'm beginning to conclude that only Westerners are capable of really gross burns.
Is it all really in translation? Does "your mother is a turtle" really mean somthing as provocative as "your mother is the lacross team cum dumpster" and its all lost in the cultural divide? |
To call someone a "turtle" in Chinese culture is sort of a double entendre: on one hand, it means slow, dull-witted and stupid. But it also means a cuckold. It means someone who is too stupid to know their spouse is cheating on them right in front of their face.
So, to say "your mother is a turtle" on one hand simply means "your mother's stupid", on the other hand means "Your mother is a cuckold", or "Your father
fucks around on your mother, and she's so stupid she doesn't even realize it."
I think it's difficult to discern the finer nuances of various languages and cultures unless one is actually fluent.
It's probably not that their insults lack bite; it probably just seems so to you because you're unfamiliar with the culture, so the insults go over your head.