Chinese in Mexico

[Doug 周]

This video came from a post in the Chinese Family History Group of SoCal ^click

Chinese In Mexico

[douglaslam]

DJ, We do not hear much about Chinese in Mexico. I did read about the killing of our people there in earlier times. I watched a DVD of Chungshan people in Mexico a couple of years ago.

Nowadays, everyone is talking about learning Mandarin ( in the video,) and no wonder Cantonese is dying. The native tongue of the Pearl River Delta settlers over the centuries did not amount to much. The old colourful lingo of the early pioneers is all but disappearing.I bet 咸水埠,Saltw-a-ter City (Vancouver) 喊綫 ( calling line, harm sin in Toishanese) telephone is going out of circulation in North America amongst the Chinese. It is a wholesale decimation of a sub-culture to be replaced by an alien one, wholly imported from northern China by the new comers. I witness this every day in my home city. I don't like it at all. DL

[laohuaqiao]

I think the nickname for Mexico, Big Lusong, came from the island of Luzon 吕宋 of the Philippines. Before the Spanish American War 1898, Philippines was a Spanish colony, so Luzon was a place with brown skin people who spoke Spanish. When the Chinese first arrived in Mexico, they found brown skin people who spoke Spanish and just naturally called it Lusong.

Oldtime Chinese Americans used to (some still do) refer to hispanics as Luzon people 吕宋人 and Spanish language as Luzon wah 吕宋话. People in my grandfather's generation, for whatever reason, had a lot of respect for Cubans; they called Cubans, Cubans 古巴人, all other hispanics they called them Luzon people 吕宋人, which in New York before the 70s mainly implied Puerto Ricans.

[chansomvia]

hi dl

Cantonese is a dying language as I was shocked by the very few who spoke it in Zhuhai and Guangzhou when I first went there, it is not helped by the older generation who speaks Taishanese at home. To add to the confusion the Siyip dialect spoken varies from village to village. douglaslam, we from Malaysia and Singapore find it disconcerting with most new Chinese in New Zealand speaking only Mandarin, our children and their spouses communicate effortlessly in Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien and Hakka, plus Malay and English, also add Hailam and Teochew. But not in Taishanese. It is different now with my grandchildren in New Zealand, there is no choice but to choose one Chinese tongue and it had to be Mandarin, Cantonese is being taught at our Association but there is little chance to practice it outside the home except with their grandparents. They will lose the ability to speak Cantonese eventually as their parents speak Mandarin to their children.

All is not lost however; places of entertainment such as restaurants,takeaways, karaoke bars, hairdressers, massage parlours and the like , still use Cantonese as the lingua franca.

[douglaslam]

Joe, good to hear from you again.
When my young daughter went to community language school on Sundays, Cantonese was on offer, and very much in demand. It was not that long ago. I have nothing against universal currency of Mandarin amongst the Chinese, it is the way other major dialects are being marginalised which riled me.

In the villages, it is not unusual to hear native kids speak to each other in Mandarin. School strictly forbid students talking in their own dialect. It is killing our diverse culture. As one who has been away from the village since 1956, I can still say phrases and common terms that younger people would have no idea of.

DL

[chansomvia]

Hi DL

I fully agree with your sentiments about Cantonese being marginalised all round the world but take back my comments that Cantonese is a dying language. On second thought Mandarin's high profile is probably due to the increasing presence of Mandarin speakers from the North, and with so many migrating to NZ and them sending their children overseas. Most first line contact now, even in Guangzhou and TaiCheng, are with the hotel staff, train and airline staff, shop workers, bell boys, restaurant staff, cleaners are mainly with people from the North Mandarin speaking folks who take these type of jobs, it makes one feel that it is a Mandarin speaking world. To this we need to add the policy of such Governments like Singapore and Malaysia to change Cantonese films into Mandarin, even popular Korean TV series are dubbed in Mandarin. However places like Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Sandakan in Malaysia still remain predominately as Cantonese speaking.

Cantonese will still be there and our own association in NZ has private Sunday Cantonese lessons for the youngsters, as a sign of times these kids revert back to English with a distinct NZ twang as soon as they leave the classroom. Cantonese speakers are being outnumbered, not dying, with support from people like you will always be there, hence my interest to return to our villages.

[chansomvia]

Hi douglaslam,

CANTONESE I attach a picture of 81 Cantonese proverbs with the Cantonese writing and how it sounds; more important it has the saying and meaning explained in English. Very useful for those struggling (including myself) with the literal meaning of the proverbs and the sage advise given. I do not think these proverbs are fully covered in Mandarin.
Joe
writecantonese8.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/cantonese-proverbs-in-one-picture/

[douglaslam]

Joe, I have seen this article a couple of weeks ago. I don't think they qualified as proverbs. Chinese proverb as we know it has an origin, deeper meaning and a story to it. Those are what we called 口頭禪, a tongue-in-cheek way of presenting an analogy,simile or metaphor. . The examples are part and parcel of our colourful Cantonese lingo.

New ones are added, sometimes with English involved as is the case in Hong Kong. We often hear people refer to something as 鬼佬月餅 foreigner's moon cake 悶極 extreme boredom. Moon cake sounds like extreme boredom in Cantonese. There are many examples I want to highlight but my PC's Chinese software does not support characters normally in circulation in Cantonese only. Another example, there is 亜駝X落棺材,死都唔掂 X is the missing character commonly used in Cantonese for lying down or to sleep. The phrase says; A hunchback lying in a coffin, even in death, his problem cannot be straighten out. It implies someone is up to his neck in deep trouble. We also have 大X; X here is for wok,a big wok, the common cooking vessel. Big wok also implies big trouble, a very common Cantonese colloquial. The character for wok is not in my software but commonly used in Cantonese. 鍋 wor instead of wok is the character used outside of Guangdong.

Tyuti1668 can help filling in the missing bits and perhaps give more examples of the so-called Cantonese proverbs in Chinese.

[chansomvia]

Thanks douglaslam for adding to what is in the "Cantonese Proverbs", I publicised this little clip on our forum to aid those who are not fluent Cantonese speakers and writers (seem to be more and more these days with the progression to Mandarin). One needs to read between the lines and keep an open mind to work out what the Cantonese proverb intends to impart, the direct translation into English bravely cannot catch the nuances and subtle flavour of the Cantonese proverbs. There are many Cantonese(and especially Toishanese)words) which cannot be written in Mandarin, fortunately my children reads both what is written in Mandarin and in Cantonese (karaoke)but not Toishanese. It is not so for their children in New Zealand. My grandchildren seem to enjoy some of these simple Cantonese proverbs but they are into Mandarin which lacks the colourful twists and turns of Cantonese.

I had hoped that by getting people to look at this website with the tongue in cheek less pedantic approach would encourage more people to use Cantonese.

Joe

[douglaslam]

.........would encourage more people to use Cantonese.
I agree with you Joe. These days I hardly hear Cantonese spoken by fellow Chinese passengers on the train or bus. What is upsetting is that the local Chinese media are aiding and abetting in the decline of Cantonese as lingua franca .