Shi Shi Shi Shi (Reasons To Learn Canto #220)

The above film is a true picture of what Hong Kong will be like if the Chinese government get its way in forcing all us lowly subjects to speak the holy language Mandarin, or Putonghua （普通話）－ common language. And there’s no denying it, it is common. Common as muck.

In one of its crazier moments (getting everyone in China to be known by a number instead of their names is another one, which illustrates rather clearly the way of thinking at a time when China was just one huge concentration camp), the Communist Party (i.e. Mao)suggested that one should get rid of Chinese characters altogether and start spelling out the words in Roman letters instead. With Roman letters all the illiterates would be able to learn to read the propaganda posters, and the worker bees would fall more easily into line.

But one clever and rather brave scholar, I forget his name, showed Mao the following poem written by Yuen Ren Chao (1892-1982). (This should of course be ‘Zhao Yuan Ren’- I got it from wikipedia)
《施氏食獅史》
石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。
氏時時適市視獅。 十時，適十獅適市。
是時，適施氏適市。
氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。
氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。
石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。
食時，始識是十獅屍，實十石獅屍。
試釋是事。

Like in my futuristic nightmare-film above, every single one of the 92 words in the poem is pronounced ‘shi’. (In Beijing dialect this sounds something like SHRR, other places in China it would be pronounced more like SZEE. (According to my latest book Don’t Joke On The Stairs, this is “the sound of two cockroaches fighting in an arse.”)

Needless to say, the harebrained scheme was promptly scrapped. Oh, how Mao must have smoldered with anger, but that was one of the few times he actually listened to someone. And this, that most words are pronounced ‘shi’, makes Mandarin so poor, vexing and difficult to understand.

In Cantonese, however, it would go like this:

《Si ji sek ji si》
Sek sat si si si ji，si ji，sai sek sap ji。
Ji si si sek si si ji。
Sap si，sek sap ji sek si。 si si，sek si ji sek si。
Sek si si sap ji，chi chi sai，si si sap ji sai sai。
Ji sap si sap ji si，sek sek sat。
Sek sat sap，ji si si si sek sat。
Sek sat sek，ji chi si sek si sap ji。
Sek si，chi sek si sap ji si，sat sap sek ji si。
Si sek si si。

Well! Quod erat rather jolly well demonstrandum, wouldn’t you say? One sound in Mando, seven different sounds in Canto, and throw in the superior amount of tones compared to the lowly four in putong bloody hua; yes, people will understand this poem just fine.

So people. don’t let this inferior, one-word language take over in our town! Let’s keep the vibrant, fun and happening Cantonese just the way it is, i.e. changing every five minutes.

(Oh, and if you want to know what the poem means, here it is:

>
In a stone den was a poet called Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten lions.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.)