Mandarin Schmandarin

Last month I was feeling a little down in the dumps; I felt that life was a cruel joke and nothing was going my way. For a while I didn’t even have that old chestnut, my health, normally so dependable, due to a bout of shark flu. Also Flying Eagle was leaving and that rammed home how transient life is and Hong Kong in particular. Where else in the world do you have to get an entirely new set of friends every three years?

I felt I was up knob creek without a paddle, quite frankly. So I dusted off my feminine side and let it rip to a friend over lunch and wine. And then she said this thing (trying to be helpful, I know!): “Why don’t you teach Mandarin? I’m sure that’s more profitable than Cantonese.” I said “Friend, have you ever met me? I hate Mandarin! I hate hearing it everywhere in Hong Kong and I hate the way the mainland government think they have a monopoly on Chinese and Chinese characters. I hate it! I’d rather rip off my arm and stuff it up my nostril!”

“I think it’s a beautiful language,” she said.

Look, it’s not the language per se, okay? I’m sure it’s fine, in fact when I arrived in Beijing fresh of the train from Norway in 1988 I thought it was a heavenly sound and set about learning it post haste. No, it’s what it stands for that I hate. Neo-imperialism, communism, control, suppression, cultural arrogance, violence and domination, and not least, simplified characters. Mandarin seeks to obliterate Cantonese and the Hong Kong culture, replacing it with plastic crap. Why should I be instrumental in hastening this process? Why should I go against my principles and actively trample on all I believe in just to make a few dollars?

But the good thing was, her innocent remark made me want keep fighting for Cantonese. Every time I get a new student, there is one more of us and one fewer of them!

國語 – Gok yu (National language/Mandarin)
簡體字 – Gan tai ji (Simplified characters)
道德 – Dou dak (Moral, ethics)

Today’s Expression: 霧 (including Today’s Weather Condition)

嘩！今日好大霧呀。Wah! Gam yat hou daai mou ah. (“Wow! Today well big fog ah”)  –  My but it’s foggy today.

Oh, and if you’re surprised that it’s foggy, you could say: 咦？咁大霧嘅？ Yi? Gam daai mou geh?  (“Yi? Such big fog geh?”) What a heavy fog? (I expected lighter or no fog.) 

You can also say: 霧好犀利呀 。Mou hou sai lei ah. (Fog well formidable ah)  or 0的霧好犀利呀。Di mou hou sai lei ah.

Yep, it’s foggy, and has been for quite some time. But you’ll be glad to know that while you fumbled around with three meter visibility this weekend, I was in glorious Guangdong province, rejoicing in perfect weather conditions, my friend even getting a sunburn.

Oh, the pig get-up? We were shooting a Cantonese video about swine flu. You can watch it on YouTube soon. And if you want to see the place above, which is very close to this place

you can come with me on a China Tour. You won’t believe how close to Hong Kong this place of no fog 冇霧 (mou mou) is.

Today’s Classifier: 隻

Yes I know I’ve done 隻 （jek) before, but then I saw this 水牛，seoi ao, yesterday morning, and was lost in classifier-ation once again.
It seems that classifiers are simplifying and that people often use 個, goh, (piece) the most common classifier, for more and more things where other classifiers would be more appropriate. Therefore, if you say 一個水牛 yat goh seoi ao, instead of 一隻水牛 yat jek seoi ao, you won’t get taken outside and shot or anything.

It’s just that using the right classifier is more elegant. So 隻 is used for mammals, round things, boats, things of which there are two, like feet, shoes … and of course 三隻手 saam jek sao (three hands) – a pickpocket!

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