Essay: Papa, Please Don’t Smoke!

Post author By Kendra
Post date June 3, 2013
17 Comments on Essay: Papa, Please Don’t Smoke!

In this essay, a child desperately (and very angrily) pleads their father not to smoke. Though this is classified as “Intermediate”, beginners should definitely try this read, leaning heavily on the hover word-list. The difficult parts are the mid-level turns of phrase, which are all explained below.

Couple of grammar points.

First of all: 我本想让您别抽烟. Most of this sentence is quite simple, but the addition of the character 本 can be puzzling, especially since 本 has many meanings. In this case, the word 本 means “originally”, as in “I originally thought to let you not smoke.” Or, in better English, “My original intention was that this would make you stop smoking.”

Another point: When the father learns that his cigarettes are gone, he 东翻西找. This phrase is actually a mixture of two words: 东西 (thing, stuff) and 翻找 (to rummage through things while searching, turn things over). We’ve seen this kind of thing before in previous posts, as with the phrase “仰起头来” in the post Little Dog Wears Shoes. If you let the mental picture kind of wash over you, you get an image of the father turning things over looking for his cigarettes.

A word of interest: 大烟枪. Literally, this word means “big opium pipe” or in more contemporary times can actually mean “big bong”. Colloquially in reference to a person, this means “someone who smokes a lot”, a “heavy smoker”.

Original is here.

爸爸，请您别抽烟了！我还清楚地记得，那天，我悄悄地把您的烟盒偷走，又偷偷地扔进垃圾桶里，我本想让您别抽烟。可谁知，您回来后，发现烟盒不见了，就东翻西找。当我告诉您，烟盒是我扔的，您十分生气，还狠狠的骂了一句话，你这个坏孩子！这句话，让当时的我感到莫大的痛苦。我把自己反锁在房间内，当时心里想着，你这个大烟枪！抽吧，抽吧，抽到死了我也不理你。
爸爸，请您别抽烟了！我常常发现您上班时，烟盒的烟还是满满的，可下班回来时，烟盒里的香烟只剩下几根了。每当看见您身旁云雾缭绕，我的鼻子感觉酸酸的。我担心您的肺已被尼古丁熏得千疮百孔。

爸爸请您别抽烟了！现在您每天都在咳嗽，每天都在吐痰。我担心您会离我们而去。那时丢下我们，那该怎么办呀。

爸爸，为了您的健康，为了我们，请您别抽烟了!

Show English translation »

Papa, please don’t smoke! I still remember clearly, that day, I quietly stole your box of cigarettes, and secretly threw them in the trash can, because I was thinking that would stop you from smoking. But who knew, when you returned, and you found out your cigarettes were gone, you rummaged through everything looking for them. When I told you, that it was me who threw them away, you were quite angry, and you ruthlessly scolded me, You bad child! That sentence made me [lit: ‘the me of that time’] feel great pain. I locked myself in my room, and at that time in my heart I thought, You big opium pipe! [Then go ahead and] smoke, smoke, smoke until you die and I won’t care [lit: I won’t pay any attention to you].

Papa, please don’t smoke! I always find that when you go to work, your box of cigarettes is still full of cigarettes, but when you get off work and come back, there are only a few cigarettes left in the box. Every time I see you you’re surrounded by a curling cloud [of smoke], there’s a sour smell in my nose. I worry that your lungs have already been riddled with gaping wounds by the nicotine.

Papa, please don’t smoke! You cough every day, and every day you expectorate. I worry that you will leave us. When you abandon us, then what will we do?

Papa, for your health, and for us, please don’t smoke!

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17 replies on “Essay: Papa, Please Don’t Smoke!”

Thank you for your readings! I have my chinese exam in a week and they are really useful!!

这件文章又不太难看懂，又有意思！谢谢

I believe the 东 and 西 in that context refers to direction east and west. Adds definition to the effort spent on searching. 🙂

Right you are! thanks for that, updated.

Your translation:

Every time I you surrounded by……isnt quite grammatically right.

And “grammatically right” isn’t exactly grammatically correct either.

東 is east, 西 is west. The words 東翻西找 means looking for the thing everywhere

Thank you so much for doing all this! I really appreciate you taking time to collect the texts and make them so easy to read and study.

Thank you!

In your introductory paragraph you note that the two meanings of 烟枪 “opium pipe” and “chain smoker.” It would probably be more useful to users if your translation incorporated this second meaning, heavy smoker.

鼻子酸酸：when you are about to cry, your nose gets sour; when your lower back is aching, it is sour; and after a long hike your legs are sour. Rather than translate this as sour smell, I would suggest, “My nose tingled [because I was about to cry]”

thanks for all the good work.

我感谢你！你也叫我们美国的英语 – ‘hawk a loogie’! 这个没有听说。

The boy is so kind to think about his father like that! 🙂

“expectorate”?

Spit:) Easy.

Thinking of the child trying to save his father and he got a lot of reasons that could happen a lot in life thanks to people that invent things maybe to try and kill us because drugs do kill you if you don’t quit and poor kid just trying to save his father. Anyways THX ONCE A GAIN
🙂