PASSING THE WOK

The world isn’t fair， not by a long shot， and sometimes you need a scapegoat. In Chinese， we have a scape-wok as in 背黑鍋 （b8ih8igu4， carry the black wok on one’s back）， because 鍋 （gu4） sounds like 過 （gu7， mistake or fault）. Colloquially， people often leave out the “black” and just say 背鍋 （b8igu4）. For example： 她沒做錯什么，卻替董事會背了鍋。 （T` m9i zu7 cu7 sh9nme， qu- t# d6ngsh#hu# b8i le gu4. She did nothing wrong， but carried the wok on behalf of the board.）

Similarly， you have 接鍋 （ji8gu4）， which literally means to “accept the wok，” as in， His predecessor screwed everything up， so he prepared to accept the wok before coming to power. （他的前任把事情搞得一團糟，所以他在上任之前就做好了接鍋的準備。T` de qi1nr-n b2 sh#qing g2o de y# tu1n z`o， su6y@ t` z3i sh3ngr-n zh～qi1n ji zu7 h2o le ji8gu4 de zh^nb-i.）

Victims of scapegoating are sympathetic figures， so they can earn the heroic title of 接鍋俠 （ji8gu4xi1， wok-accepting knight）. Though unfairly in most cases， they are always the ones taking responsibility with chivalric aplomb. However， let’s remember that for someone to accept the wok， someone has to give it away； for that， we have the expression， 甩鍋 （shu2igu4）， meaning “throw off the wok，” or “throw the wok to somebody.” If a sports team loses， the coach might put all that blame on the players， so you might say： “The football team lost the match， and the coach did nothing but throw the wok to his players. （足球隊輸了比賽，可教練卻只會甩鍋給隊員。Z%qi%du# sh$ le b@s3i， k0 ji3oli3n qu- zh@hu# shu2igu4 g0i du#yu1n.）”

However， wok-throwing hardly ever works and you may have to take responsibility. For this， we have 分鍋 （f8ngu4， distribute the wok）， which roughly means to distribute blame， as in， The project has failed. It’s time for the team to distribute the wok. （項目已經失敗了，現在是分鍋的時候了。Xi3ngm y@j～ng sh～b3i le， xi3nz3i sh# f8ngu4 de sh！hou le.）

Sooner or later， the wok comes for us all. There’s no rhyme or reason to it， thus， sometimes， 天外飛鍋 （ti`n w3i f8i gu4）， a wok just falls from heaven.