Rather Tseen than Heard!

After my comment in a recent post that Cantonese is "not a pretty language", I have been politely told "that is the entire point."

Seems this 'ugly language thing' is something wayyy political. China, as you know, has a great many ethnic minorities ...

Ethnic minorities bringing up the rear
of HK's 'China 60' celebrations.

... all of whom have their own languages. The ruling Han Chinese don't like this and want it to stop; wants Mandarin to be the ONLY language spoken in China!

The Cantonese, however, are the recipients of greater than usual abuse, with the Han saying it's the ugliest language they've ever heard and that, to their ears, it sounds like a pig grunting and that it HAS to be made to die out ... although they also say they find nothing uglier than Cantonese trying to speak Mandarin and wish they wouldn't try.

And, by the way, because they said "This is a language without any value. There's never been any poetry written in Cantonese." explains why Chow Yun-Fat read out that long Cantonese poem in the film "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.":



Yes, I know he doesn't read it in this clip, but you get the idea; in fact, the director says that Chow came to the film with definite ideas on what he wanted to do with this character, and they allowed him to adjust and change and do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted to do was play that real-life Tanka pirate, HK's greatest, Cheung Po Tsai, and what he TOTALLY wanted was to shaft the Han by resurrecting an ancient Cantonese poem ... which enraged the Han so much it was edited out by the CCP for Mainland release.

But that's all by the by, because what I want to tell you about is tseen, which is HUGE in HK. "Tseen" means "the lowest of the low" or "as vulgar as you dare", and that's what HK is currently aiming for, language-wise. Funky-feisty-folk are celebrating being told their language is vulgar by basically going "You think THAT is vulgar. Now THIS is vulgar!" and everything they say these days is intended to be ugly, coarse, bitchy, swear-ridden, and very, very funny.

Guess that's what I was listening to the other morning, as our apartment's scaffolding went up. Tseen! Although, yes, I understand, and yes, I kinda appreciate their feisty-fightback ... mmmm, definitely, it's not something you want to hear when you first wake up.