Cantonese - Cultural Observations: Lesson One

Preface
"Can you speak Cantonese?" is a frequent question I get here in Hong Kong. Do these people realize the difficulty of answering this question? Do only multilingual people understand what language really is? The answer fits somewhere outside of "yes" and somewhere outside of "no." My sister has talked about Chinese professors hearing her Canto and telling her she speaks with all the common slang of the 60s and 70s, when our parents immigrated to the US. This "cultural petrification" is common for immigrants.

So I grew up with their Cantonese. "But if you speak Canto with your parents, why does your Canto suck!?" Think about all the vocabulary that you would ever use with your parents, especially parents typical of Hong Kong Chinese culture. Some Hong Kongers I talk to do get it: "Oh...because all you really talked to them about as a kid was 'are you full? Go brush your teeth, go take a bath'"

"Yep," I'd respond. "Plus there are whole subject matters that you'd never discuss with your parents, I've never learned that!"

It all becomes so obvious in Capoeira class, when I show up to the beginners' lesson and I want to give them some pointers. I've never taken a PE class or learned to play sports in Cantonese. The ideas are in my head, and the vocabulary for "turn" "way" "kick" "put your hand like this," I have all that vocabulary, but which ones do I use cause there are so many synonyms...how do I link them together? Cantonese becomes a foreign language to me as soon as I enter the Capoeira lesson. Just imagine my advice coming out something like this in its English equivalent "incorrect turn that way don't be th- this way here put and kick this"

January 14th, 2008
"How do you say haahm sap" in English?" she asked me. I told her "horny", although I footnoted to her that the difference between "horny" and "haahm sap" is that "haahm sap" is always negative, while "horny" can be neutral or negative. I proceeded to demonstrate that you'd never hear someone in that romantic mood say in Chinese to their partner "hey baby...I'm really haahm sap!" Through our language exchange, I've learned that there are all sorts of ways to say "horny" in Cantonese - gum yu lou (金魚佬, mui so, and one other one I forget - all negative. Does this say something about Chinese culture and sex? And Anglo culture and sex? "That's it?" she asked. "Only 'horny', no other words to express that?"