Sihk Mouhchihnggai: to be fired (lit. eat feelingless chicken)During the 1950s and 1960s, several hundred thousand refugees fled to Hong Kong from mainland China. Those who found jobs would rely on their employers to provide food and lodging to them. Every year on the second day of the Chinese New Year (this year, it starts on February 10, 2013), shopkeepers would invite employees to have a Hoi Nihn ("beginning of the year") meal. If an employee was given a chicken's head by his boss, it meant … [Read more...]
Who Am I?
June 18, 2012 3 Comments
Hahmbahlaahng: allAncient Han language, dialects of northern China, and foreign languages collude to form Cantonese. The word hahmbahlaahng came from the spoken language of northern China during the Yuan dynasty. While "hahp" means all, "bala" is an empty morpheme, a sound without meaning tacked onto the end of an adjective. What happens to our identity when we, like the Cantonese dialect, come from multiple origins? Best-selling novelist Lisa See's lineage holds both Chinese and Caucasian … [Read more...]