Adventures in Cantonese 
Language Challenges in China
by Wena Poon 

1. Devils 
I am ethnically Chinese, but I do not speak Cantonese. 

The very first Cantonese word I learned when I moved from New York to Hong Kong was guai (“ghost” or “devil”). The Cantonese staff at my international law firm used that word liberally. Not that spirits were particularly prevalent in the cheerfully fluorescent, birchwood-lined confines of my office. Guai is the official word in Hong Kong for “white man,” and there were certainly a good number floating around in my office. 

In Hong Kong, Chinese people like me who live in America are despised by a majority of the locals, particularly by those with little exposure to life outside of Hong Kong. To be Chinese, you not only have to be racially “pure,” you have to have lived in Hong Kong or China all your life. You have to be utterly fluent in Cantonese and read and write Chinese without difficulty. In fact, if your English is too good, you might fail the “Chineseness” test! I fulfilled some, but not all, of these criteria. 

I would still have passed the Chinese test had I not made the unfortunate, culturally unpardonable error of marrying a white American. This instantly pushed me over the edge and earned me the epithet of guai mui (devil wench). I am gregarious by nature and because of the nature of my work, managed to make many social acquaintances in Hong Kong. But I never quite shook off the uneasiness of being casually referred to as a guai mui. 

Calling foreigners “devils” is such a widespread practice in Hong Kong that, for better or for worse, Westerners have ceased taking offense. These days you may reasonably call a white man a guai, or a guai lo (devil chap), even in his presence. White men have worn that epithet remarkably well and even use it to refer to themselves. But white women hate being called the female equivalent, guai por. Por means “old nanny” or “granny.” Guai por really means “old bag.” Women almost always get the short end of the stick, and Hong Kong is no exception. 

Because I was tired of being called "devil wench," I was determined to learn Cantonese. As most people who live abroad know, speaking to the locals in their own language opens up an entirely different universe. I learned Cantonese reasonably quickly - by my third month I was able to converse in halting Cantonese with my Hong Kong colleagues. One of them asked me, “Are you married?” 

“Yes,” I said. 

After complimenting me on my youthful appearance – in Asia, after you are married you are allowed to let your looks decay - she asked in Cantonese if I was married to a man or a ghost. 

“A ghost!” I replied, without missing a beat. A very useful word, guai. 


2. Molds 
My Cantonese cleaning lady did not speak English. I had to learn Cantonese in a hurry if I wanted my house cleaned properly. 

My secretary at work, whose name was inexplicably “Wincy,” would help me write down Cantonese phrases for the cleaning lady. My Kate Spade filofax became filled with erudite Cantonese housekeeping jargon that would have fazed even Martha Stewart. For example: 

“Sweep the floor.” (“Sou dei.”) 
“Floor mop.” (“Dei tor.”) 
“Kitchen sink.” (“Seng poon.”) 

Once I called Wincy in a panic. I absolutely had to tell my housekeeper about the broken dehumidifier. I did not know the word for “humid” or “dehumidify.” 

“Cao sap gei,” said Wincy. “Simple. Extract Moisture Machine.” 

If you live in Hong Kong, you absolutely need to have as many dehumidifiers as you can afford in order to extract the maximum moisture from the muggy, wet air. During the hot summer months, mold often grows on upholstery and clothes. In fact, I became so paranoid of mold attacking my closet that I learned a far-ranging Cantonese vocabulary to refer to that universally dreaded biohazard: 

“Empty the dehumidifier.” (“Dou gor gor cao sap gei.”) 
“Grow moldy.” (“Fat mou.”) 
“Where is that musty smell coming from?” (“Fat mou mei dou, hai been dou lei ge?”) 

Once, Wincy helped me complain to the landlord. “Deem gai yao gum dor ga zha?” (“Why are there so many cockroaches?”) For try as we might, we could never stop the occasional vermin from slipping under the kitchen door and audaciously marching about the house. The word for “cockroach” is onomatopoeic - ga zha. It sounds harsh, crackly; it rustles. You say it with a grimace, a shudder. It still sends a chill up my spine even today, as I write from San Francisco. 


3. Contradictions 
Signs everywhere in the supermarket proclaimed that certain kinds of eggs, milk, and vegetables now “Have Machine.” I tended to avoid them. I assumed the signs meant that the produce was manmade or genetically modified. Imagine my surprise when a Cantonese friend told me that the Cantonese words, “Have Machine,” actually meant “organic.” 

“But that’s just the opposite meaning!” I exclaimed. 

“It’s organic,” she insisted. 

“How so?” 

“Well, it’s not made with pesticides.” 

“So why say it’s machine made?” 

“It doesn’t say it’s machine made, it says it ‘has machine.’ If something has machine, it doesn’t have pesticides.” 

“Why would something grown organically have machine?” I demanded, wondering what the Cantonese word was for “logic.” 

My friend became utterly confused. “I don’t know, just accept it as it is. It’s the Cantonese word for ‘organic,’ okay? I don’t know who first made it up. It wasn’t me.” 

Another friend told me he thought it meant that the foods had been air-flown, because “Machine” is synonymous with “Airplane.” 

“Yao gei, or Have Machine, means the organic products were flown in,” he explained. 

“Yes, but not all air-flown products are organic.” 

He lost interest in the subject. The labeling never persuaded me to spend a penny more on these Have Machine goods. 


4. SARS 
During the SARS epidemic, I had to learn how to say SARS in Cantonese (fei deen yin fai yeem). It meant “atypical pneumonia” and rhymed with “mujahedeen.” So whenever I heard it on television, I thought that armed guerilla fighters were taking over the country. I also learned the following useful vocabulary dealing with SARS: 

Face mask: Hou zao 
Sterilizing alcohol: Zao zeng 
Self-protection: Zi bou 

Quite quickly, this all degenerated into: 

“Not enough face masks, quickly order more from America!” (“Mm gou hao zao, fai dee hui mei gok giew!”) “I’m not leaving my house!” (“Mm gam chut moon!”) “Don’t come so near me, please!” (“Hang yuen dee hou mou!”) 

Months later, when the newscasters had tired of saying fei deen yin fai yeem over and over, they switched to a simple, two-syllable word for SARS. This one you don’t need to know Cantonese to get: Sah-see. 


5. Farewell 
On my last day in Hong Kong, my Cantonese friends came to see me off. One of them was proud inheritor of all eight of my Extract Moisture Machines.

“We’re sad to see that you are Sitting on the Flying Machine to go back to Beautiful Country (America),” they said solemnly at the gate. 

“Yes,” I said as my husband and I waited for our turn at the ticket counter. At the end of three years, I had become quite comfortable in Cantonese. “The ghost and the devil wench are going.” 

After having known my husband and me for three years, my friends have also adapted to American vocabulary. “Gum, lei ‘take care’ la.” (“So, you take care!”) Except when “take care” is Cantonized, it’s pronounced, “tek kee-yare” in a sing-song tone. It is a nice sound. I like to think that there is simply no equivalent in Cantonese for this fond bidding, which is why they had to say it in English. 

And with that farewell, the spirits sat on the Flying Machine and departed at last from Fragrant Harbor. 


This article was a runner-up in the Glimpse Fall 2003 Writing Contest, "Look Ma, No Hands!" 

Wena Poon lived in Hong Kong from 2000-2003, where she spent most of her time working as an American lawyer for an international law firm. She is a graduate of Harvard-Radcliffe College and Harvard Law School. 

<excerpt from http://www.glimpse.org:80/Language-Challenges-in-China>