Idiomatic Sayings

GB enjoyed the Ipoh salt chicken so much that he crunched the bones to bits. Laughingly he said, “My brother says that when I eat chicken, the dogs and the cats cry.” He means that he had so cleaned up the chicken bones that there is nothing left for the domestic animals to enjoy.

I liked the way he expressed his enjoyment for the dish. In fact, I often encourage my students to use local idiomatic expressions in their essays. After all, different races have their own way of expressing the same thing. Let’s take jealousy for instance. The English language expresses it as green eyed jealousy. The Chinese express the same emotion as : So and so has red eyes.