It’s All About Face

Here is one of my students – let’s call him X-tor. Like so many he succumbed to “MOvember,” the terrible annual male uglification-fest where guys deliberately mutilate their faces to get people to give them money to save other guys’ organs. (That’s my understanding of MOvember anyway.)

Now, I’ve known X-tor for years. He’s a good man, a pleasant man and a man whose face exudes kindness. But as soon as he got the rodent-thing draped around his lip it was as if he wasn’t him anymore. My mind knew it was him, I heard his voice coming out of his mouth, but my eyes saw a stranger; some kind of drug dealer who was going to stab me to death for $25. It was very disconcerting.

It made me think about how important the eyes are, how much more important than the ears, say.

If you’re white or non-Asian and learning Cantonese, this, not the language itself will forever be the biggest hurdle. (As well as HK people’s attitude to foreigners learning Cantonese, but more about that in a future post.)

When HK people see a non-Asian face, they brace themselves for English. Only English can come out of that face. Even if it’s fluent Cantonese, they still think it’s English because the face tells them so. That’s why no matter how fluent you are in Cantonese, 99% of all HK people, will answer you in English when you address them. Or they simply “won’t understand” their own language. Their eyes told them English was coming, so what could this possibly be?

That, and not the tones or the ridiculously simple grammar, makes Cantonese difficult.

學生 (Hok saang – student)
唔識聽 (M sek teng – don’t understand)
十一月 (Sap yat yuet – NOvember)