While adding the phrase "break one's
balls" to my computer data a few weeks ago, I looked up in the online
dictionary trying to get more information.
To my astonishment, I found the following explanation:
It arose out of a truly painful, yet common
practice among beef cattle operators where they bust the bull’s balls as a
method of castration.
Believe it or not, I witnessed the same
method people used here when I was a kid. I might be just five or six then and wasn’t
in school yet.
One day I heard a commotion outside and
went out to investigate. A bunch of folks gathered at the front yard and there
was a bull buffalo in the middle of the crowd. Then some fellows tied the
bull's legs and pulled it down to the ground. An older man got a rope and proceeded
to tie the bull’s scrotum all the way up to its belly. That was a really tense
moment. I was a little scared because I didn’t know what they were going to do
to the bull.
After some loud conversation, while the
young guys tried to hold the bull still, an old man raised the hammer and
smashed at the scrotal sac, not once, but several times. The bull was
struggling, shaking and let out many painful roars.
I still can imagine how shocked and painful
the bull was. I saw tears in its eyes and foam at its mouth. I don’t remember
how much longer later they untied the beast and let it stand up.
It was my first-hand witness of castration
of a buffalo. It surely was a once in a lifetime experience. It happened so
long ago and I totally forgot about it till that moment I saw the aforementioned
definition in the dictionary.
It was really a very crude and cruel way of
castration, but that's the only way people knew how back in those days. Veterinary profession is a relatively modern thing.
Talking about castration, it applies to
human too. In ancient Chinese imperial court, all male servants in women’s
quarters are actually castrated men who are called eunuchs. In real life, it
applies to all sorts of animals as well.
As I recall, castration of male chickens is
a very common practice here. A male chicken becomes a capon once it is neutered
and grows bigger than a rooster and meatier as a result. Way back when I was
still a kid, there were caponizing practitioners who travel around the rural
areas seeking customers. I vividly remembered in several occasions I was
helping out holding the rooster still while that guy performed the castration.
He cut a hole in the backbone area where he found and removed the testicles.
Note:
A few years ago, I first heard of the U.S.
egg-laying industry’s practice of killing all newly hatched male chicks. Chick
culling is indeed a very cruel practice. Can the Animal Rights advocates change
it? I don’t think so. Is caponizing a suitable alternative solution to killing?
It’s a topic deserves more attentions. That’s the thought I had when I first
heard the TV news.
In the bygone days when people were poor,
almost every family raised pigs to boost income. Consequently, there were needs
for people to castrate male pigs. Castrated pigs grow faster, bigger and
meatier. I also did witness the castration of pigs several times.
There was another profession which no
longer exists nowadays. For families raising pigs in those days, while there were
needs to castrate male pigs, there were also needs to help impregnate the
female ones. Thus, a separate profession came into existence which was called 牽豬哥 (literally means
pulling a boar along). This new category of practitioners who travel around the
country areas with their boars to service those who have such needs. I happened
to find a clip recently which features the traveling man-boar duo. It’s a
precious clip.
Look at this edited short video which was
filmed some 60 years ago.
註：本視頻出自王功人製作的「影動台灣」
Traveling man-boar duo_老人與豬公雙搭檔
My Chinese interpretation of “break one's
balls” :
下面是本人對「break one's balls」的中文翻譯：
使勁兒
拼命地
使出全力
刁難
為難
惹火
惹毛
找麻煩
惹…生氣
找…的麻煩
開…的玩笑
對…嘮叨個不停
對…不停地嘮叨
此處balls是指睾丸
此片語屬於粗俗的用語
註：
作者本來要將本文以雙語發表的，奈因找不出時間翻譯，只得暫時以英文先發表。
