There is an expression in Mandarin, Buyaolian (pronounced boo-yiauw-lee-en, with emphasis on the ‘yauw’). Literally, it means ‘does-not-want-face’. The closest English translation is ‘shameless’, but that does not quite do it justice. It usually means ‘shameless-in-the-way-a-management-consultant-steals-your-watch-and-charges-you-to-tell-you-the-time’, but it can also mean ‘hogging credit when credit is not due’, ‘lazy’, ‘benefiting from other peoples’ work without contributing’, ‘dishonest’, or ‘sexually promiscuous’. The third time a classmate in the LL.M program who I did not know very well asked me for my class outlines, I called her ‘buyaolian’. I meant ‘lazy’, but she took it to mean the last-listed meaning. She was furious.
It is dangerous to make generalizations about a culture based on the vocabulary of the language spoken by its members. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is fun to bat about when you are an undergraduate, but it is unprovable because it proves too much. But let’s be naughty here. Swear words in German tend to be scatological. The French curse with sex. Quebecois swear words, by contrast, tend to be religion-based. The West Slavs also use sex to swear, but their sex-based swear words tend to focus on the social, while French swear words reference plumbing.[1] I read somewhere that the common American insult ‘motherfucker’ is descended from West African languages where swear words tend to refer to incest. I am going to guess that this is why the Mandarin buyaolian is a stronger put-down than the English ‘shameless’. It comes from a community of speakers who generally care about honor and shame. To call someone like that shameless is a grave insult. To call a person with no shame shameless, by contrast, is no-harm-no-foul.
A couple who live in my park in northern New York are buyaolian. The English term does not do them justice.
Here’s what the Morans and their son have done over the years:
- Ike, the son, stole the appliances from a park-owned home that he lived in and sold them;
- Joe, the father, tried to pay us with counterfeit bills;[2]
- During the eviction moratorium, they let back rent of several thousand accrue. Pursuant to an early COVID-relief law, they used their security deposit to pay part of that. They did not pay that back;
- They have worn out their welcome with local charities that provide short-term rent relief; and,
- They refuse to provide us with a working phone number.
A few years ago, when I was trying to get in touch with them about a debt, I called a number that was listed under their name on a skip-trace app. The number had a 512 area code. This made sense because when they had first moved in, they told me that they had moved to northern New York from Texas. When they told me that, I told them that I had gone to UT. This gave Joe ammunition to use the Texas card to kiss up to me. For a while, whenever he would see me, he would say, “How do you think the Longhorns are going to do this year?” I would say,
-Fuck if I know.
-It gets hot there in the summer. Nothin like here! Whoo-ee!
-About your lot rent, Joe…
Anyhow – when I called the number, a male voice answered. He was cordial until I said the Morans’ name. Then he lit into me. I could not understand what he said, but whatever it was, it was shouted by him at the top of his voice, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I suspect that the guy was a family member, a creditor or an old landlord who they had badly used. I tried to tell him that I was one of the good guys and that we probably shared views on this topic, but I did not get the chance.
When ERAP came out, I helped the Morans apply for assistance. I did not begrudge them that. I am not a libertarian. ERAP is a good idea, badly executed.
The Morans applied for ERAP in June of 2021. They applied for currently-due back rent of approximately $721, plus three months of prospective rent. They received an award of $721 in September 2021. I helped them appeal their award; their appeal was denied. They went back to paying sporadically from the proceeds of a combination of grants from local charities and, I understand, counterfeit bills sold for pennies on the dollar.
In January, the New York State eviction moratorium was revoked by Governor Hochul. However, what the blindfolded goddess gave with one hand, she took away with the other. The initial ERAP statute said that an eviction proceeding could not be brought against a tenant who had an ERAP application pending. In December 2021, the ODTA, the state agency tasked with distributing ERAP funds, stopped accepting applications. It did this because it had disbursed all of the federal ERAP funds that had been allocated to New York State. It did not make sense for renters to apply for non-existent funds in the regulatory equivalent of a dry retch.
On January 6, Judge Lynn R. Kotler of the Supreme Court of New York County issued a preliminary injunction on behalf of a group of plaintiffs who had tried to file ERAP applications with the ODTA in order to head off eviction proceedings. The injunction held that the ODTA was required to continue accepting applications even though there was no possibility of any such application being accepted. The reasoning was that at some unspecified point in the future, Congress might distribute more ERAP funds. It was not fair – the court held – for tenants to be evicted in the mean time. Although the injunction made vague noises about funds expected to be received from Congress in March of 2022, no time limit was placed on the stay. March 2022 has come and gone, Congress has made no moves to disburse further ERAP funds, but the injunction remains in place pending inchoate action from Congress.
Stranger – tell the Lacedemonians that we remain in this position awaiting a guy named Godot.
Two weeks ago, I noticed that the Morans were short a couple grand. I sent them a five-day demand and a thirty-day notice. Mrs. Moran asked to use their security deposit for rent again. I asked her, politely, to kiss my ass. Then, it was radio silence, and I thought that that was that.
Then, Friday morning, my phone farted. It said, “Your tenant, Josie Moran, has applied for the NYS Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). Please visit our website to provide required information needed to process the application.” She had ducked the impending eviction proceeding by filing a null application.
I am not sure whether this will work. The attorney who represents me in northern New York tells me that judges will not scrutinize the merits of an ERAP application that is tendered as a defense to an eviction proceeding. They will throw a case out of court even if the application is fraudulent on its face. I do not think that that is a correct interpretation of the law. If my memory serves, the ERAP statute says that an eviction cannot proceed if an application is still pending with the ODTA. The Morans applied in June. They received a decision on their application in September, and were given a chance to appeal that decision. They received a final determination on that appeal later in the year. That seems to me like a final determination. You can’t file an application after a final determination. Or – you can, but the application is dreck, because you have already exhausted your remedies. But at least some judges seem to be taking the position that any application – even an application filed when there is no longer the right to file the application – is adequate to stay an eviction proceeding.
What a dense, unjust and lugubrious world we live in.
One thing I do know is, buyaolian, jiu shi buyaolian. Literally, that means, “Shameless people are shameless”. If you wanted to dress it in pearl-of-wisdom drag you would say, “Shameless is as shameless does”. But the English does not really do it justice.
[1] For example, the default swear word -the analogy to the vacuous f-word in English – in French is con, while the analog in Czech and Polish is kurva. The first is a body-part; the second is a social construct.
[2] Joe was captured on surveillance cameras passing counterfeit money several times around town. A local news site ran an article about him saying, “If you have any information about this man, please contact law enforcement”. Mike, the manager at that park, saw the news story and attempted to alert the police, but the police did not act on his tip. Joe tried to pay his lot rent with cash a few times and Mike told him that we only accepted check, money order, or online payments. Incidentally, the NBER noticed that abnormally large quantities of sugar, baking soda and enriched flour were used by donut shops in the area around the time that Mike reported the tip to local police. Of course correlation is not causation, but we are just sayin.