Black Dragon Cafe

“Circling fly” is used to describe someone who uses tactics of confusion and misinformation in order to get what they want, most often in a business situation. For example:

The price? Let me think for a minute… You know, you were recommended to me by my older brother’s wife’s cousin, I heard he’s a classmate of your younger sister when she studied in Wuhan. Anyway, now this cousin is an official with the Ministry of Construction, and he’s coming down to Kunming in the next couple months, and he said he’d be coming to meet with you anyway, they have some big project they want to do with the new airport, and he said he’d like to talk to you. How about then we all go out for a meal, talk it over, maybe this could be the start of a long term collaboration? What do you think? Now, what were you saying about the price?

The reason they use the term “circling fly” is because that’s exactly what you feel like when you experience it: It’s like having an insect buzzing around your head, but no matter how hard you try to swat it, it always eludes you.

circling fly 绕蝇 rào yīng

Yunnan dialect example:
今天有一个大绕蝇来绕我，她讲她妹妹是你十多年前呢朋友，绕了我两个多钟头，我呢 1 头都着她 2 绕晕嘚 3 。

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English: Today I met with a master “circling fly”, she said her younger sister was a friend of yours from ten years ago, and then went on for two hours – she really did my head in.

Illustrations by Jason

1. 呢 = 的, the possessive particle is always pronounced “ne” in Yunnanese. (Mine = 我呢)
2. “都着她”= “都被她”, the passive particle 被 is always “zhuo4”. (He was swallowed by a whale = 他着鲸鱼吞嘚啦, in Mandarin this would be 他被鲸鱼吞掉了)
3. 嘚 [end of sentence] = 了 [sentence final past tense, to show that an action is completed], note that the other versions of 了, for example the 了 for change of state/condition, such as a change in the weather (“下雨了”) or status (“他不在那个公司工作了” “He doesn’t work for that company anymore”), is pronounced “la” (“啦”) in Yunnanese. Just to confuse you a bit more, the 了 that comes after a verb (I think it’s the perfect past tense in English?) is the same as Mandarin 了, see “绕了我” above.