Hantu (Singapore)

 

The word “hantu” strikes fear into the hearts of most S.E.Asian children in my childhood days.  

    It means “ghost / spirit” in Malay / Indonesian.  There were lots of hantu films in my younger days, which we children couldn’t watch without at least one adult present for us to clutch.

    Adults, especially male ones for some reason, loved to scare us with hantu stories at night — no point telling them in the glare of daylight, not effective enough, not so much fun.

    The big house where I grew up had a red skin banana tree (not common) at the bottom of the back garden.  The loo was also at that end of the house.  

    One night, the womenfolk (two aunts, three older sisters, two maids) sat in the covered patio after dinner, and one of them started to say that hantu-hantu* reside in these red skin banana trees.  

    A bit later, I had to go to the loo.  I dug my sister out of bed and made her go with me, insisting that she stand outside by the door AND keep on talking loudly so that I could hear she was there.

(Singapore, 1960s)

* In Malay / Indonesian, one just doubles up a noun to make it plural, e.g., kawan / friend is kawan-kawan in the plural.

Chinese sayings: 27 (紛至沓來 / 纷至沓来)

紛至沓來 / 纷至沓来

fēn zhì tà lái

“numerous arrive numerous come”

to come thick and fast

The university college I was working at had appointed a new director.  (It shall remain unidentified for obvious reasons.)

He was a banker in his previous job, so the first thing on his new-broom-sweeps-clean list of chores was to try and save money, starting with proposing to shut down the Linguistics Department.

Huge waves of protests from within the school:  how can a school of languages be without a Linguistics Department??

I arrived one morning for work to find one of the porters, Ian, emerging from the telex room (which was on the other side of the corridor from the reception desk), hands full of reels of telex, shaking his head.  Asked what the matter was, he said, “The machine hasn’t stopped spewing out incoming telexes from universities all over since the director’s decision to close down the Linguistics Department.”

I asked, “What do they all say?”

He said, “Only what a prat he was.”

Another day, I arrived to find that I had to go round the building and get in through the side door (which I never knew existed before), as the driveway in front of the main entrance was being dug up.  I asked Ian what was happening there.  He said, “Oh, the director dropped a penny, and they’re looking for it.”  (It turned out that the chancellor of the college was visiting, so they were sprucing up the place a bit.)

(London, 1980s)]

Compassionate London train drivers (London)

 

London is such a big city with a population of just under 10 million that one would expect people with a timetable to keep, such as train drivers, to be just jobsworths interested in fulfilling their work duties.  

    I heard a couple of decades back that bus drivers got penalised not just for being late (happens easily with the horrendous traffic jams, exacerbated by road works), but for being early as well (so they have to hang back and idle away the minutes at a bus stop if that happens).  I know being too early also messes things up for others, with people arriving on time to find their bus has gone, so it’s a fair enough system, penalising both ways.  

    Well, train drivers don’t have traffic jam problems (although they do have problems with signals, I know from experience), and they can perhaps catch up on lost seconds or minutes by speeding up a bit in between stations.  They mightn't be able to just go faster to make up for lost time, though, as there might be a speed cap built into the trains for safety in case a driver goes a bit speed-crazy.  

    People tend to complain officially when things go wrong but less often write in when things go well.  

    I want to put that right a little bit with this blog about two train drivers who’d been kind enough to this absent-minded old lady, taking a few seconds of their timetable to ease her journey.

    The first one was at Upper Holloway London Overground station a few months ago.  

    I’d just tapped in my Freedom Pass (old people’s free travel pass) when I saw that my train was already sitting at the platform.  I took the first opening in the railings on my right, which turned out to be a ramp for wheelchairs and prams.  

    What I didn’t see at that point was that the ramp is very long, as it has to slope gently downwards, therefore needs to zig zag a few bends before it reaches the platform level.

    As I took my first few steps down the ramp, the driver (a black chap), who could see how long a distance (and therefore time) it was going to take me to reach the platform, which meant I’d miss his train, stepped out of his cab and waved to me, pointing at the stairs (second opening in the railings on my right).  So I backtracked up the ramp and took the stairs instead.  

    When I got to my destination, I made a point of standing in front of the driver’s cab, and waved and mouthed a “thank you!” at the driver through the tinted glass, even though I couldn’t see him.  (I’m sure he’d have seen me as drivers have to keep their eyes on the platform to make sure everything is all right before they take off.)

    The second episode was just last week at Stamford Hill London Overground station, two bus stops away from me.  

    It was only my second time catching a Cheshunt-bound train from there to Southbury further north, where I was going to do a massage.  I went and stood at where the head of the train would be, from my first experience of taking a train from there.

    It turned out to be a shorter train this time, shorter by about two carriages.  Being the daydreamer that I am, often in my own little world thinking up ideas for teaching, e.g., I didn’t notice that the train had stopped short of where I thought it would be.  The driver honked to alert me, and gave me time to run back down the platform.  So sweet.  (How many people get honked at by a train driver, except for misdemeanours, I ask you?!)

    Two episodes of personalised service rendered by two compassionate train drivers who used their humane common sense and saved an old lady missing their train and having to wait for another 20 minutes for the next one.

    They are a credit to their profession and to the human race as a whole.  Also a credit to their parents.

(London, 2024)

Why 王八 wáng bā for “tortoise / scoundrel”?

 

Over my decades of teaching Mandarin Chinese, I noticed that students (especially the male ones) had either already learned a few rude words (swear words, insults) before they started to learn Chinese, or were keen to be acquainted with them, as if that was a measure of how un-textbook their Chinese is.

    One of those rude words is 王八 wáng bā for “tortoise; cuckold; male brothel-owner”.

    The “tortoise” bit is easy enough to explain:  

• The plastron (underside part) of the tortoise looks like the character 王 wáng / king; surname Wang
• The two ends (with the legs sticking out at an angle) look like the character 八 bā / eight.  

It’s a term used by ancient northern Chinese people for referring to the tortoise.

    But why does “tortoise” in this context have a derogatory connotation?  

    According to my superficial research, 王八 was originally a scoundrel called 王建 Wáng Jiàn, nicknamed 王八 Wang No.8 by people as he was the eighth child.  So, there’s the link between 王八 and 王八蛋 “scoundrel egg” / bastard.

    Another angle on it is:  during the 明清 Ming Qing (1368–1911) times, 王八 wáng bā / “Wang No.8” became 忘八 wàng bā / “forget eight”. 

    忘八 wàng bā / “forget eight” refers to forgetting the eight moral virtues of 孝悌忠信禮義廉恥 / 孝悌忠信礼义廉耻 xiào tì zhōng xìn lǐ yì lián chǐ, or forgetting the eighth moral virtue of 耻 chǐ / [sense of] shame.  

1. 孝 xiào / filial piety (one’s duty towards one’s parents and ancestors)
2. 悌 tì / love and respect for one’s elder brother(s) (note the gender- and positioning-specific element; one doesn’t need to exercise this quality of behaviour towards one’s younger male siblings nor female ones, both older and younger)
3. 忠 zhōng / loyalty 
4. 信 xìn / trustworthiness
5. 禮/礼 lǐ / propriety, etiquette
6. 義/义 yì / [sense of] justice, moral righteousness
7. 廉 lián / honesty, integrity
8. 耻 chǐ / [sense of] shame

If one has forgotten the eight moral virtues, then one deserves to be called a scoundrel.  If one has forgotten the eighth moral virtue of 耻 chǐ / [sense of] shame, then one is shameless.

The concept of 蛋 dàn / egg in the Chinese language

 

Further to the blog “Students’ mistakes are much more fun” (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2024/10/students-mistakes-are-much-more-fun.html): 

蛋 dàn / egg is used as a suffix in a number of Chinese words, more often uncomplimentary than neutral, e.g.,  

    王八蛋 wáng bā dàn / "wáng/king eight egg" = (offensive) bastard

* 王八 wáng bā = tortoise / cuckold / male brothel-owner 

* 蛋 dàn = egg, here = offspring

    笨蛋 bèn dàn / "stupid egg" — a lot of Chinese offensive labels use animal imagery to compound the insult, i.e., that the person being insulted is not even human (cf. English with "cur", "donkey", "rat", "snake", etc.)

    A mnemonic or explanation suggested for why 蛋 dàn / egg is used in 穷光蛋 qióng guāng dàn for a pauper is that the person is so poor that he has nothing (the “光 guāng / bare” bit), to the point of being like an egg — completely bald, with nothing on its surface, bare of possessions.

Students’ mistakes are much more fun (London)

 

A listening comprehension piece last week with the Tuesday group featured a poor/impoverished man, which is 穷人 qióng rén in Chinese.

My usual practice is to then extend students’ vocabulary by giving other words/phrases using the word, 穷 qióng / poor in this case.  The word I gave was 穷光蛋 qióng guāng dàn with the literal breakdown (another usual teaching method of mine) of “poor bare egg”.  

I then asked the students to guess what the final meaning of 穷光蛋 might come to from the literal breakdown of the component parts.

One student (aged 83 and a good cook) remembered a listening comprehension piece I’d done with them last year, talking about how mainland Chinese people make their dough for dumpling skin based on the 三光 sān guāng principle.  No need to measure ratio of flour to water.  Just keep adding water to the flour while mixing it in with the hand, until the inside of the mixing bowl and the hand are bare of gooey dough.  (See blog https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2024/10/making-dough-for-dumpling-skin-london.html for more details.)

Going by the meaning of “bare” for 光 guāng in the 三光 dumpling skin story, and by the fact that when the dough is the right consistency, it stops being gooey, cleaving to the inside of the mixing bowl, and comes away, so that one can see the bottom of the bowl, this particular student’s offering for the man being a 穷光蛋 qióng guāng dàn / “poor bare egg” was that he was so poor one could see his bare bottom — because he didn’t have the money for enough material for his trousers to cover even his bottom.

I’ve always told students that I don’t want to retire, as I get so much fun out of teaching, even (or especially) when they make mistakes.

(London, 2024)

Dumpling culture (Taipei)

 

During my time in Taipei working for Conoco Taiwan, my three sisters and the husband of one of them came over for a 10-day tour of the island, having read my letters and seen my photographs sent home at regular intervals.

    Tour over and back in Taipei, I took them to downtown 中華路 Zhōnghuá Lù (Chung Hwa Road), their Oxford Street, for the shops and eateries.

    The Singaporean way of eating, especially as a group, is to go to a food court (an agglomeration of food stalls gathered under one roof, replacing the roadside stalls of the old days, spread out and around), find a table anywhere, then go and order your own dishes (which will be delivered to you) if you have special preferences not shared by the others.  This way, you can enjoy each other’s company without having to compromise on the food.

    My plan for the night out on Chung Hwa Road was to eat a bit of food, then venture forth for some shop browsing, then eat a bit more food, then more browsing.

    It was 5pm.  We walked into a dumpling place — only because it happened to be the first one on our route.  It was empty.  We sat down.  

    The man came round, beaming a warm welcome.  I ordered 25 dumplings.  

    He repeated my order, scribbling it down on his pad, “That’ll be 25 dumplings each, for five people.”  

    I corrected him, “No, no, not 25 dumplings each — 25 dumplings in total.”  

    He was horrified, “But that’s not enough.  That’s only five dumplings per person!”  

    I said, “Yes, we only want a snack.”  

    The big smile disappeared.  The pen and pad went into his apron pouch.  

    He said, “I’m not going to start my stove just for 25 dumplings.  You can go somewhere else for your snack!”  

    I’d never been thrown out of an eatery before or since.

(Taipei, 1976)

Making the dough for dumpling skin (London)

 

I threw a farewell party for one of my MA Bilingual Translation students in 1998 when she had to leave the course early to return to Beijing.

    It was a course for Chinese speakers only, so the cohort was made up of people from (alphabetically) China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.

    Given my poor cooking skills, I thought it’d be best for everyone if they were to make a dish each — with ingredients supplied by me and made at my place.  More interesting too, as they were from different geographical regions.

    The Beijing student chose to make 餃子/饺子 jiǎozi / dumplings, which is a northern Chinese thing.  (The north of China, being dry, grows wheat, rather than rice, which needs a lot of water, so the diet of northern Chinese people is more wheat-based.)  

    I grabbed the opportunity to learn, starting with asking her for the ratio of the ingredients (flour and water in this case), which is how Western-style baking works (the right ratio of flour, butter and eggs for cakes and cookies, e.g.).

    Her answer was:  “No need to know the ratio.  Just keep adding water to the flour, applying the 三光 sān guāng / ‘three light’ principle: 盆光、手光、面光.” 

    盆光 pén guāng / “basin bare”

    手光 shǒu guāng / “hand bare”

    面光 miàn guāng / “dough sheen”

    光 guāng means “light” (e.g., daylight, sunlight, moonlight), also “bright / glossy” — think shining a light on a smooth surface, hence both “light” and “glossy” for the same word.

    At the outset, as one dribbles water onto the flour while mixing it all up with the hand, the mixture will be gooey and stick to the inside of the mixing bowl (the 盆 pén / basin), as well as to the hand.

    Keep mixing and adding water until, as if by magic, the gooey mixture will come off the inside of the bowl and the hand, leaving them bare (光 guāng), and form a lump of dough. 

    Stop adding water but carry on kneading until the dough has a sheen to it (the other meaning of 光 guāng here: glossy).  That’s when it’s the right consistency.

    Try it for yourself if, like me, you find it incredible.  I did, the next morning, thinking, “Well, she’s a northerner, so of course she’d get it right just like that.  Not me, so rubbish at cooking,” but hey, it did work for me, too!

    The above account is not a cookery lesson, just sharing a moment of magical discovery for me, reducing the element of fear when making the dough for dumpling skin.  

    So, you will of course need to know what type of flour to use, and how much flour to use for the number of dumplings you want to make — which will, in turn, depend on whether the people you’re feeding are big eaters or not, whether there’ll be other dishes or not, etc.

    Finally, the above is about dumplings northern Chinese style, called 餃子/饺子 jiǎozi (these days, Westerners know it more by the Japanese for it: gyoza for 餃子), which is different from Cantonese-style dumplings (just to name one, as the list is long).

(London, 1998)