Add oil, or get your private part steamed?
I had been wondering why a number of my students, friends and cousins used the word "chai-yok" to replace "good luck". Much similar to my guess that it must have come from either Japanese/Taiwanese/Korean/Mandarin dramas, later I found out that this phrase comes from a TV series, which I don't watch.
I thought that this is a wave of language fashion and would eventually fade and disappear and would be replaced by other. But no. As time goes by, I noticed more people are using it and I thought I felt sick of hearing something used so extensively while I still didn't know its meaning. From the contexts it's being used, I knew it must have meant "good luck" or "do you best" or "break a leg" or something to that effect. What makes me sick is that why replace these phrases you're familiar with, with a foreign word when you neither speak that language nor know any other words in that language? I donno but I have a weird feeling that this word is not used in a right way so to feed my curiosity, I decided to find it for myself. I searched, "What does Chai Yok mean?" and this is what I found: It is Jia You, literally means "Add Oil" http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=50701&st=140
When I searched for a popular phrase used in a drama that means "good luck", I found this "Jia You"
http://www.google.com.my/#hl=en&biw=1309&bih=606&q=jia+you&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&fp=1afb4df9905ff92b
So if the phrase "Chai Yok" ever exists, what does it mean? This is what I found, and I was so shocked!! Moral of the story: Learn a foreign word properly before using it. http://www.google.com.my/#hl=en&source=hp&biw=1309&bih=606&q=chai+yok&aq=9&aqi=g3g-s1g6&aql=&oq=chai+y&fp=1afb4df9905ff92b
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