Tag: Cantonese

Quirky Cantonese Proverbs

Melissa Tan

One of the most influential aspects of my upbringing was my love for Hong Kong dramas, which not only entertained me but also immersed me in the rich Cantonese dialect and its colorful expressions. I was particularly fascinated by the proverbs that punctuated the dialogues. After spending a few years in Hong Kong, my appreciation for Cantonese culture deepened as I experienced firsthand the charm embedded in its sayings. In this blog, I’d like to share some of my favourite amusing expressions that showcase the creative spirit of Cantonese culture. To me, they are a treasure trove of wit, wisdom, and humor!

My favorite: Unexpected honesty

  • 擔屎不偷食 (daam1 si2 bat1 tau1 sek3) – Carrying feces without secretly eating it
    Meaning: To be completely honest and trustworthy.
    This proverb is both hilarious and thought-provoking. It paints a rather unappetizing picture to make a point about integrity. The idea is that if someone can carry feces without being tempted to eat it (as if anyone would!), they must be extremely honest and trustworthy. It’s a humorous way of saying someone is so honest they wouldn’t even consider doing something unthinkable.

A quick response proverb

  • 𦧲飯應 (loe 1 faan6 jing2) – To spit out the rice and respond.
    Meaning: Someone responding quickly or readily accepting an attractive offer.
    Isn’t it fascinating how vivid imagery—something so good that even if you’re eating, you would spit out your food just to say yes—is used in Cantonese to express eagerness or swift reactions?

Culinary caution

  • 食碗面反碗底 (sik6 wun2 min6 faan2 wun2 dai2) – Eat from the top of the bowl, then flip to the bottom.
    Meaning: To betray someone who has helped you.
    This expression compares ingratitude to flipping over a bowl after eating from it—using and discarding someone without any thought for their kindness.

Animal antics in proverbs
Cantonese culture loves using animals to reflect human behavior! Here are a few examples:

  • 老貓燒鬚 (lou5 maau1 siu1 sou1) – An old cat burns its whiskers.
    Meaning: An expert makes a careless mistake.
    It humorously illustrates that even the most experienced can make blunders.
  • 食死貓 (sik6 sei2 maau1) – To eat a dead cat
    Meaning: To take the blame for something one has not done; to be made a scapegoat. This disturbing proverb is used to describe a situation where someone is forced to take responsibility for something they didn’t do. The image of eating a dead cat is used to convey the unpleasantness of being blamed unfairly.
  • 豬乸會上樹 (zyu1 naa2 wui5 soeng5 syu6) – A sow can climb trees.
    Meaning: When pigs fly.
    This proverb is used to describe something that’s extremely unlikely to happen.
  • 烚熟狗頭 (sap6 suk6 gau2 tau4) – A boiled dog’s head.
    Meaning: To laugh or smile with a big toothy grin (often in a derogatory or sarcastic way).
    This unsettling image describes someone laughing or smiling widely, often inappropriately or mockingly.

·  死牛一邊頸 (sei2 ngau4 jat1 bin6 geng2) – A dead cow’s neck on one side.
Meaning: To be stubborn or inflexible.
This proverb likens a stubborn person to a dead cow’s stiff neck, emphasizing inflexibility and an unwillingness to change.

·  雞同鴨講 (gai1 tung4 aap3 gong2) – A chicken talking to a duck.
Meaning: Two people unable to communicate or understand each other.
This amusing expression highlights a situation where two people speak different languages, or metaphorically, are just not on the same wavelength.

There are many more such examples that demonstrate the Cantonese language’s rich cultural heritage and penchant for humour. I find exploring these proverbs endlessly entertaining, as they offer a unique glimpse into the Cantonese worldview, blending practical wisdom with a hearty dose of laughter. Next time you’re chatting with Cantonese-speaking friends, try dropping one of these sayings—you’re sure to get a chuckle, and maybe even impress them with your cultural savvy!

References:

  1. Gongjyuhok Cantonese Idioms 港語學廣東話俗語/歇後語大https://gongjyuhok.hk/learn/cantonese-idioms
  2. Varsity, Chinese University of Hong Kong https://varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk/index.php/2016/12/cantonese-proverbs-idioms/2/

Languages in Hong Kong

Li Peng

Hong Kong is a diverse city where different languages and cultures converge and sometimes conflict with each other. I would like to bring two interesting discussion points in terms of Cantonese and English in Hong Kong, which relate to the language vs. dialect debate, and British English vs. American English respectively.

A few weeks ago in our class, we took a glance at the case of mutual intelligibility between Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese. I will come straight to the point, in my opinion, Cantonese is a dialect under the Chinese subfamily (Huang & Liao, 2017). We cannot deny that people in Hong Kong and mainland China can both understand each other through writing, using the traditional characters or the simplified characters, for instance, sending an e-mail or texting with others. When Hong Kong people travel in mainland China, they can read the signs, and vice versa. Thus, based on the mutual intelligibility criteria at least in terms of the written form, Cantonese and Mandarin are different dialects of the same language, Chinese.

However, many dialects in China share this same situation: we speak and write in different ways. In other words, what we are speaking is not reflected word for word in what we actually we write down. For example, in Mandarin the writing of umbrella is “雨伞”, which is called “yǔsǎn”, while in Hong Kong the character is slightly different with the form of “(雨)傘” but with a totally different pronunciation of “(jyu5) ze1”. This is a good example of how what we write is mutually intelligible but we share no similarities in phonetics. Actually, Hong Kong people do have a word corresponding to “(jyu5) ze1”, which is “(雨)遮”, but they seldom use it as teachers are likely to teach the formal written forms rather than the actual words we speak in our daily lives. As a result, people tend to learn these characters informally, when texting with friends or by reading colloquial handouts, etc. I would be very happy to answer you if you want to discuss this further and know why.

Another interesting case in Hong Kong is the usage of British English and American English. Because of Hong Kong’s British colonial history, we (but perhaps it is just me) take it for granted that Hong Kong people speak and write in a British way. To my surprise, however, this is not always the case, and sometimes they use both British and American styles in the same place. Take a look at the picture of public signs at Austin Station of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong. The signs “exit” and “way out” appear side by side, while the former is the American style, the latter is the British way. Also, my friend from Hong Kong told me that they were likely to pronounce in a more British way one or two decades ago, but now they tend to pronounce with a more “r-ful” sound (still not as heavy as the Americans). These are wonderful examples of people using different styles of English in Hong Kong, aren’t they?

If you can read in Chinese, you are very welcome to see the relevant article with the link https://www.orangenews.hk/features/details.jhtml?recommendId=138043. I also find that Google Translate does a fair job in translating this article, so you’re encouraged to read it as well with the translation tool. I have also attached the link of a video in which some non-native speakers of Cantonese try to pretend to be the native speakers and see whether others would be able to identify them. It is a pity that the video on YouTube does not have the English subtitles.

  1. Do people in your country or region speak and write in a different way? Can you share some examples of how the differences are?
  2. Do you know any other places using British English and American English simultaneously? You are welcome to tell your anecdotes.

References:

Huang, B. R., & Liao, X. D. (Eds.). (2017). 现代汉语 [Contemporary Chinese] (6th ed.). Higher Education Press.

Van Herk, G. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Son, Inc.

Video link: 非粤语区人伪装粤语区人, 会被发现吗？Real VS Fake

Hong Kong Cantonese VS Guangzhou Cantonese

Yidan

As a big fan of Hong Kong TV dramas, movies and songs, I always admire people from Guangdong province where Cantonese is a major lingua franca. They understand Hong Kong Cantonese dramas without subtitles, sing Cantonese songs and communicate with people from Hong Kong without any barrier. According to Norman, Cantonese is considered the prestige variety of Yue Chinese variants, based on the dialect of Guangzhou City (Canto) and the surrounding areas including Guangdong and Guangxi province, Hong Kong and Macau (p.215, 1988). However, a question has always lingered in my mind: is there any difference between Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangzhou Cantonese? After research and observation, I find that there are mainly two differences to help distinguish Hong Kong and Guangzhou Cantonese. 

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Hong Kong hotel life

Mela

A burst of blog posts blew into Educational Sociolinguistics in the brief time it took technology to blow me westward to the far East for a week of encounters with extraordinary scholars at the Education University of Hong Kong. A brief time by the calendar, but long in subjective time, measured by the innumerable back-and-forth fractions of an inch that make up all the movement possible in the cramped quarters one is confined to when flying for fifteen hours over the wide Pacific.

While I was uncramping over the weekend, the contributors to this blog were writing about sexism in Chinese and racism in English (the term “bootlicking bilingualism” particularly stood out for me as deserving of a wide public) and applying their knowledge of pragmatics across a range of tricky situations from snack ordering to sales pitching. The blog has been busy. Posts about poetry and how untranslatable it is—along with most of the really interesting language out there—have been flooding in. 

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My Language Biography of Two Identities

By Wai In Chan

Hello everyone! This is a bit late in the semester, but I still wanted to share my language biography with all of you and hear your thoughts about how I identify myself. I am of Asian descent, born in Hong Kong, China. I speak Cantonese, English, and French (very basic!).

My family immigrated to Canada in order to start a better life when I was two years old, and we have lived here ever since. My mother had gone abroad to Canada as an international student prior to her marriage and my birth. Therefore, she had some knowledge of the English language and completed some education here. Due to these circumstances, I was able to complete my studies here in Canada in English.

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Mandy’s language biography – A Chinese girl and her Latin languages

Shengwen Xu

I was born in the Southern part of China. I speak a major dialect in China, Cantonese, with my families and of course, Mandarin, which is a mandatory subject for all Chinese students. Although Cantonese is only a regional dialect in China, its influence and exchange with other language is related to the immigration history. Most of the early Chinese immigrants in English-speaking countries like the US, Canada, the UK, etc. are from the southern provinces of China, thus bringing the language of Cantonese to the world. Now familiar English words like Dim Sum, Wonton, Wok, Chow Mien, mostly words of food, come from Cantonese instead of Mandarin.

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