Dailies, Hong Kong, Just Kidding, Life
What language is that?
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Originally uploaded by: wouldpkr
I was clicking back few of my old posts and found one funny comments I made for Grace on A Sense Of Being Fili-Pinoys. I don’t know, it makes me laugh. Kung baga kababawan. I’m full of that, life is too corny. In short it is about lightening up a bit, enjoying life and laugh about it.
But guess what, all the great truths in life are corny. While there are many negative horrible truths in life about poverty and misery and war and disease and hypocrisy and evil, they are not corny. The point is, if you’ve got the fun, joyfoul, life truths before you, choose these and not reject them because they are corny.
Anyways, apologies to my non-pinoy friends, the content of the story is in Tagalog. If I translate them to English, then I’m not going to laugh at myself. You know it’s like when you are surrounded with non-english people, sometimes we assumed that we can understand them. “What’s that guy saying. What language is he speaking?”.
Even animals can understand human language. Do they really? I mean, I don’t think that they can understand. I believe that they just react. If they are trained to follow an order, it is because of an incentive, not because of the word said. In my case, even so, if you’re talking with someone in your own language, sometimes we think and say, “Does that person really understand what I just said”?
The conversation below is a story between the old photographer and myself getting a photograph size for my passport renewal.
Akoto: “pwede ho bang ngumiti sa camera”
Si Manang: “hindi tingin ka lang sa dot para ok ang kuha kasi sa passport dapat ganun”
Akoto: “ganun ho ba”
Si Manang: “anong trabaho mo dito”
Akoto: “ho?”
Si Manang: “$40 lang apat na piraso….”
Akoto: “ang MAHAL naman, pwede yung luma ko na lang kaya gamitin”
Si Manang: “hindi, kailangan bago. Dibale, libre na lang xerox copy, yung first and last page ng lumang passport mo, baka hanapin” (methinks: PINAS STYLE to ah?)
Akoto: “Salamat ho”
Si Manang: “teka, Catanduanes, kilala mo ba si….”
Akoto: “Oho, tatay ko po”
Si Manang: “kaya naman pala.. ilang taon ka na”
Akoto: “Ho? nasa passport ko po yung year of birth. Tanda na nga po ako…”
Si Manang: “Hindi halata”
Akoto: “Sige ho punta na ako sa Consulate, 14/F”
Si Manang: “Anak, sarado ngayun, balik ka ng Sunday, bukas sila Sun hanggang Thu lang”
Akoto: “FOOK!”
Si Manang: “wag mo na akong PO PO-in”
Akoto: “..hindi po.. OPO., salamat po”
Mind Trips
by: The Brand New Heavies
two words… translation please! :]
Hahaha Pari, I can’t. Well it was about the word “FOOK” nothing else just FOOK. In HK, I find this word everywhere, it’s actually a chinese word, don’t know the meaning about. Don’t worry, it’s the same thing happened to the old photographer, she didn’t get it either.
ooo changed the layout again. Happy easter!!! well belated but I just got back from travelling. What’s up? How’s work?
Hi Ear good to see you. The new theme is part of my Spring cleaning. You know, the seasonal routines. change here, add there those kind of stuff. I’m great btw and Happy Easter.
belated easter wishes K! hope you had a wonderful day…
cool sign “FOOK” could be the person’s name coz if not mistaken that is a legitimate chinese last name (I think)
Happy Easter to you too C, it wasn’t that great but I had a wonderful dinner, a friend invited me for some nachos and quizadillas.
wo pu ming pai
Oops, forgot.. sure you can add me as a friend.. hmmm, how do we do it anyway? I’m the blur type you know. heh.
I was talking about flickr on the previous comment.. just thought you should know. okok.. i’m off.
Asha, FOOK I say that all the time didn’t I?
BTW, I added you on my flickr. Open your flickr account, I sent an invitation and add mine. Share the photos.
Depending on the anunciation and tone, fook could be as simple as good luck. It’s the first variant that springs to my mind in Latinized Canto. In the sign, it is definitely the word for good luck; Dor Fook could be ‘lots of good luck’.
That’s a nice word, latinized canto. No wonder the King Fook jewelry shop around here is pretty succesful, maybe because the name of shop means GOOD LUCK. I hope it’s not the same word for FOO GAI, the one I mentioned to you earlier. hehehe.
King Fook would likely have the same fook if it is a jewellery shop. Foo gai: I tried Googling this in case but the first one with the phrase is this link and it doesn’t seem relevant!
I am glad you like Latinized Canto—I made up the term on the spot but it describes it well!
So which means FOO is vegetables, like TOFU. While GAI could be relevant to chicken which becomes, GAI KYOK and if you put that together, it’s a CHICKEN with VEGETABLES? Hahaha, that was fun. I’ll ask my colleague when I come back to work. They always say that to me when I’m playing around being naughty, they yell “FOO GAI CHAI”. I’m a naughty boy maybe?
I think thats another latinized canto thing huh?
LOL at the story.
“kilala mo ba si ano at si ano.. anak ako ni ganito na taga duon…”
—> very Pinoy!
Belated Happy Easter, bunny!
Kahit saan ganyan ang Pinoy. Lahat tatanungin sayo and think that so and so is your so and so. Minsan, hindi ka na maniniwala o baka nambobola lang sila. Eh dami ko ng puting buhok, “young looking” pa daw kuno ako? LOL.
Happy Easter to you too, Princess.
Very much so, K! I would be interested to know what your colleagues say. Gai I got for chicken in Latinized Canto, but foo is interesting. Could mean bitter, but you never know as the tone isn’t writeable!
Chai would be son in that context.
So it means, I’m a Son of The Bitch? hahaha, that pretty much explain since I am also good in swearing in cantonese. They laugh, I know cuz I use slang tones and they find it cute that I know at least 5 kinds of swear words. Now don’t ask me what they are.
i’ve always wondered what tagalog sounds like to people who don’t understand it.
Hahaha Dez, I think other people think that we woggle, joggle & gobble it. It’s always easy to learn the bad words without really thinking that BALUT is surely palatable. Wait, what’s with balut? You can’t even find a Google translator for Tagalog words, I wonder why there are other languages such as Chinese, Spanish, etc that does this?
I am not sure if it means son of a bitch; I have a feeling it could be more comical and fun. Cantonese is a dialect so geared to humour that we can make any sentence into a joke!
I’ve been here for quite a long time and I can’t speak proper sentence in Cantonese. My nephews speaks better than I do, they can even read & write chinese characters. I have no patient I think and I just have to pick up certain words and put a “lah” every end of the sentence.
When in doubt, use Chinglish! It is hard picking up a foreign language as an adult.
I enrolled to learn Mandarin many times, Jack. Not easy but at least I tried (very hard) to speak the correct tone. Well they said it’s easier than the Cantonese but man, they all sound the same to me.
Xie Xie ni? Ni hao ma? Forget it, hahaha.
Mandarin is impossible to me! I cannot understand a word of it. Plus it is way too formal. Cantonese is slangy, and you just can’t take the piss as readily in Mandarin.
As to why English is hard to learn for other non-english countries. Some people would not be happy learning English as their 2nd language or vice versa for Cantonese. I mean if you really want to learn other language, if its very useful why not? Be passionate about it and respect its culture and philosophy. Although we pick up words we never understood, we use them to humour ourself. I think that’s pretty obvious for me.
Yes, that is very true. Also it is important to mimic or even mock—though with respect. What I mean is that to get the right intonations, you almost need to be extroverted in being able to mimic someone.
I do mimic the British accent all the time at work. Funny tho when I do that, they think, I’m picking up an Aussie accent. But you can pretty much tell my strong Filipino accent when I do speak in a usual conversation, proud to say. Obviously, I’m just a big fat mimicker but I’m not a basher.
I am proud to have my accent, too. I’m very proud of my roots. Mine’s a weird mix but I think that comes from travelling. I actually do not notice it because to me I speak “normally”! But others pick up traces of bits and pieces.
I get used to the people around me here. It’s like, I have to understand a few cantonese since I work in a chinese speaking community. I wish it’s easy as ABC but, I’m having fun (and very patient about it).
[...] I live in one of those Streets so I’ve noticed this new Pacific Coffee branch on the ground floor at Pak Fook Building (FOOK word is everywhere around here) and if I remember it correctly, this building has been closed for more than three years because few residents who have lived there was hit by the SARS epidemic in early 2003. Perhaps, it was closed for other reasons. Obviously, the building looks like it’s back in business since thousands has already recovered from the disease and Hong Kong is now declared SARS-free. [...]
I know I get a bit frustrated learning a language in adulthood—Swedish has been harder than I thought, though I am getting the hang of it and am more patient now, especially after picking up some more words. I think the beginning period is tough; then you get to a point where you feel you know enough that you can begin comfortably and patiently absorbing more.