Do not know whether to laugh or to cry
Have you recently experienced anything that you do not know how to react to? About two months ago, I had an interesting but also a little bit annoying experience in the library.
I like reading novels in my holiday, especially those with mystery themes. One of my favourite mystery writer is Keigo Higashino from Japan, who is good at writing unexpected endings for his stories.
On that day, I went to Guangzhou Library and picked up a book of Keigo as usual. In the next hour, I was lost in the intricate plot as well as the murder guessing game. However, something happened which made my eye fixed. When I turned to the next page, I found that one character’s name was marked as ‘This person is the murder’ by a ‘kind’ reader. Suddenly, I lost my motivation to continue to read the rest of the novel. At that time, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I really want to ‘THANK’ this ‘KIND’ reader.
By the way, are there any English words meaning ‘do not know whether to laugh or to cry’? Thank you.
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Corrections · 8
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Do not know whether to laugh or to cry
Have you recently experienced anything that you do did not know how to react to? About two months ago, I had an interesting, but also a slightly/[little bit] annoying experience in the library.
I like reading novels in on holiday/during my holiday, especially those with mystery themes. One of my favourite mystery writers is Keigo Higashino from Japan, who is good at writing unexpected endings for his stories.
On that day, I went/had gone to Guangzhou Library and picked up a book by/[of] Keigo, as usual. In the next hour, I lost myself/I was/became lost in the intricate plot, as well as the murder guessing game. However, something happened which made caught my eye fixed. When I turned to the next page, I found that one character’s name was/had been marked as ‘This person is the murderer’ by a ‘kind’ reader. Suddenly, I lost my motivation to continue to read the rest of the novel. At that time, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I really want to ‘THANK’ this ‘KIND’ reader.
By the way, are there any English words meaning ‘do not know whether to laugh or to cry’? Thank you.
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@Davis Thank you for your help. Yes, there is a phase in Chinese called ’哭笑不得‘.
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@ Thaís Thanks for sharing your stories :)
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Possible words you might use...
ambivalent, perplexed, conflicted.
They aren't specific to laughing and crying, but just two contrasting emotions or thoughts.
Is there a word for this in Chinese?
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I really don't know if there is a word for this, but I had already been in this kind of situation.
A few years ago my causin and I were having a sleepover at my house, she came in on a saturday morning. The next day I was woken up with my other causin, who lives next to her house, in my kitchen saying that her father, my uncle, had passed away.
I was so sad, but I started to laught shyly. I still don't know why, it was a weird situation and everybody has their own way to handling things and mine's was pretty weird.
Since then I've been trying to understand but I still don't.
And I'm do sorry for the spoiler, these things should be a crime.
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