Accordion "pulls wind!" In your language, how do you "play" accordion? Do you push or pull?
In English, we often talk about playing accordion as, well, "playing," like we play games. But in Taiwanese Mandarin, we don't "play" instruments. We generally describe a specific action: "plucking" guitar, "blowing" trumpet, and "pulling" accordion. Also, the default accordion action is assumed to be pulling, while in English it's common to call the accordion a "squeezebox." What are the idiomatic ways to describe accordion playing in various languages or cultures? Is it primarily push or pull?
This can lead to some humorous wordplay. Here's a clever promo poster for an upcoming concert: The funny part is that that the title is something like "Ultimate Wind-Pulling Fold-osophy." 拉風 (la feng) is "pull wind," and in Taiwanese slang, if something "pulls wind" it means that it is extremely cool or dashing! That just makes accordion sound so inherently awesome.
For the curious, the soloists are Vincent Tsai, who studied with Galliano and has built up a thriving accordion community in Taiwan, and Wang Xue ("Vittorio" Wang), a bayanist with Chinese and Russian lineage who's also a highly skilled tuner and repairer. He taught me everything I need to maintain and spot tune my own instrument. I'm glad to see that they're playing at a highly prestigious national venue, and the program is here.
ETA: Doesn't Swedish "Dragspel" imply pulling? Can anyone confirm?