Local Uncle Writes Own Language Wrong!!!!!

I have just (“just” meaning three weeks ago) come back from Norway, and while I was there I sent various postcards, among them to an uncle in my village. What, your uncle lives in your village in Hong Kong?!? you ask. No, in Cantonese any old geezer can be your uncle. (亞叔, ah-Suk or, if really old, 亞伯, ah-Bak.)

This particular ah-Suk had a stroke years and years ago and can’t speak, only quack and groan. I still mostly understand what he says because when we’re chatting I go into a kind of trance, and he laughs at everything I say although he’s getting quite deaf. Perfect conversations. Anyway, I sent him a postcard from the most touristy fjord, writing “You’ll never guess where I am!” （你估唔到我0係邊度!）signed Miss Gam （甘小姐).

When I got home, I found the uncle very excited about the postcard. When I asked him where he guessed I have been, he wrote something with his finger in the palm of his hand. Hmmmm… it didn’t look much like ‘Norway’ （挪威, Lo Wai）but then his writing skills have also been severely harmed by that damned stroke. What he “wrote” could, in fact, be anything.

The next time I went to his shop, he handed me this note that he had written:

Awwww! Small wonder I hadn’t been able to decipher his finger-writing. He had written the 挪 in 挪威 as 羅 (also Lo but means Net and is his surname and the name of my village), and using the simplified character at that. (Yeah, he’s from Hainan.) Same sound!

In the note it says, among thanking me profusely: “Is Lo Wai a city? How long does it take to get there? Do you have to change planes?” Awwwwww! So sweet!

People, always write postcards and letters. They are so much appreciated these days.

P.S.
I’m running crash courses in
Dim Sum
Market Shopping
Having Clothes Made in Shenzhen
and Reading Chinese Menus and Other Characters

all summer!