Culture Cracks

Most of my live Cantonese sessions are done in the venerable Honolulu Coffee and Cake Shop, one of the last proper cha chanteng in Central. The last venue (see film above), whose name I can’t remember now, became a bag shop and last week I saw it was undergoing yet another transformation, no doubt to something awful and unnecessary.

Anyway, last night in Honolulu I noticed they had gone to the trouble of purchasing brand new cups! The fourth or fifth ‘season’ of cups since I started working there in – bloody hell – 2009!

I remarked to my two geezers ah-On and ah-Wai that I’ve been told that in Chinese culture it’s good when the cups and plates are cracked and chipped, because it shows that the place is so busy the waiters must throw the crockery down as they hasten to take yet another order.

“I thought that the place was full of people eating and drinking showed that the place was busy,” ah-Wai quipped,looking at the empty and deserted Honolulu with the waiters dragging themselves around at top speed. Well, it’s busy at lunchtime. Really, really busy.

But it got me thinking again about just as the Cantonese language is always the opposite of English (paper and pen, drink and eat, 6 number ferry pier) the culture is too. Mostly. Severely cracked and chipped cups would be frowned upon in the western world, even in a greasy spoon. Me, I welcome another season of clean, gleaming white cups! For every time I drink a hot lemon water in that establishment, it’s another victory for Cantonese. One more of us, one fewer of them.

茶餐廳 – Cha chan teng (tea meal parlour/HK style greasy spoon)
檀島咖啡餅店 – Tan dou ga fe beng dim (Sandalwood Island [Hawaii] Coffee Cake Shop)
紙筆 – Ji bat (paper pen)
飲食 – Yam sek (drink eat)
六號碼頭 – Lok hou ma tau (6 number ferry pier/Pier 6)