I was out on Saturday for work with some colleagues (well, they're the bosses actually, I'm the minion) and while in the car to Little India, one of my very lovely colleagues spoke to her son on the phone and she called him "Ah Pa" which, in the Indian culture (my colleague's Indian), is a respectful terms you use for men. So someone in the car asked why she calls her son "Ah Pa" and she said it's a more respectful way to call your son when they're grown up. So immediately, being Chinese and being so used to the typical fierce and scary Chinese mothers, a couple of us said "Huh? You have to call your kids with respectful names?" and she replied something that makes excellent sense. She said "Well then how else are you gonna teach them respect if you don't really respect them?"
Well said!!!! This is something you don't always see with Chinese parents, especially if the mom is Cantonese cos somehow the Chinese demand respect from their kids and actually enjoy calling their kids stupid names that shows parental dominance and let me come up with some common names (in various dialect phonetics) they call their kids, completed with translations that is...so here they are...
Mama B prefers to use a hair brush than wooden spoon and sorry, can't seem to find a picture of angry Chinese Mother that's as good as this
- Su-ooi Poh (Translation: "Bad-luck woman" in Cantonese...this is directly from Mama B...somehow it's an terms of endearment...don't ask me why)
- Say-lui Bao (Translation: "dead girl bun" in Cantonese....yeah, very Cantonese)
- Say-chai (Translation: "dead boy" in Cantonese...you hear this ALL THE TIME in Hong Kong)
- Si Kin Nah (Translation: "Dead children" in Hokkien...you hear this all the time)
- Poo-wah-peh Kia (Translation: "Fall sick kid" in Hokkien....this is rather harsh and people use it to scold people the hate in general, but I've heard this dad yelled this at his teenage son at some train station...)
Actually that's all I can think of for now...it's a Monday morning after all! Ohhh...hope my mom's not reading this or I'll get the "Hair Brush" from her...hahaha...I actually miss her heaps!
P.S. Scott contributed another one:
- Chou-mei (Translation: "smelly girl" in Mandarin...I haven't heard of it but he said all Chinese moms would call their daughters at some point...haha)
3 comments:
Chinese mama also says "rather give birth to a piece of char siew" than us at times because char siew can be eaten. So scary. Better be careful with what you write.
Otherwise you will become Say-lui Bao "dead girl bun".
Haha No. 1 goes back to Hongkong and become dead girl bun!
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