GX GARNERINGS

(Leica X1) What these photographers took to be a free photo shoot session with the usually sexily clad models at road  shows might be nothing more than a chance to openly appease the lust of the eyes, a visual free lunch. Well, photographers, depending on how you phrase the meaning of it. I do not intend any offence but that is just my personal opinion. If one is really showing contempt to a man, there is a sort of jokingly derogatory  Cantonese term "ma-le-no", which literally means rough-swing-man. On application: men may speak it causally to make fun of the receiving side or in a piqued tone with some four letter words to make known his fume. If it is spoken by a lady to a man, the usual scenario is they being in a fight in which case "ma-le-no" will be shouted out at the top of her lungs. But never say this word in front of these photographers to spoil the party and make the situation difficult for everyone. (P.S. stress on MA, weaken on le; if you ut...

Not a catch-as-catch-can method can I ever think of to effectively help me memorise the spelling and pronunciation of the Gaelic names of my Irish friend and his two sons instead of letting them go by their initials D, C and R. It might have taken me months to be able to let their names sink in, but definitely in less than a week to have them drained out of my brain and repeatedly so afterwards. This probably sounds familiar to gweilos and gweipos when it comes to the transliterations of the Cantonese names.  No wonder when the first decades the British extended their rule over Hong Kong, the Cantonese names were transcribed by the familiar English spelling system, say, Lei Yue Mun became Lyemun . In a sort of similar spirit but a funnier way, two Irish expats in Hong Kong, Mark and Aisling, have done a  photographic project to poke fun at the Cantonese names of the underground stations . (Nevin's note: Sorry for being silent for a while. First is the busyn...

(Sony A55) Enjoy! (*Ding Ding is the local way of calling the tram which is actually the onomatopoeia of its sounding bell.)

(Ricoh GRD4) Head-downer (“deaitouchok” in Cantonese) is the locally coined term for people predominately engrossed in using their electronic mobile communication devices.

(Sony A55) Ding Ding is the affectionate name for tram among the locals. It probably originated from the bell sound of its "honk". So if next time you are in town and wish to take a tram but can't find your way, you may ask any passer-by, like, "Could you tell me the way to take Ding Ding?"

(Ricoh GRD 4) "Sou" is a richly loaded word literally meaning, among others, "stop" while "gong" is "work/ effort".  Sougong is using said in an exclamation sort of way when one is knocking off from work, especially if the following day is a holiday or a long holiday which I am going to enjoy. Sougong for today!

(Ricoh GRD IV) Time for learning some Cantonese. "Dadha" is a colloquial expression for small talking, where "ha" is an universal exclamation morpheme in Cantonese to give the sense of a fleeting moment, a quick while, a short duration or being casual. "Tang" is to listen while "Tangha" may mean to hear casually.  "Taei" is to look while "Taeiha" may suggest to take a quick look. By the way, "Dadmugah" means "What are you 'small talking' about". Oh, I really like today's shot of these three chaps "dadha" at the red traffic light even though they "dadmugah" was unknown to me.

(Leica D-Lux 5) The two bigger Chinese characters on the billboard right above the girl say so (or alternatively, heart gripping), from left to right pronounced as "sum suen".

(Leica D-Lux 5) The Chinese character is pronounced as "mong" (or "wang" tone 4 in Mandarin), meaning "look". It can be used in an exclamation or imperative like, "Hey, take a look!" ("Wai, mong ha!") or as sort of a transitive verb in sentences like, "Look that way" and "Look at me".  CSL Learners should note that every Chinese character can be both a word and the smallest morphemic element to go with other characters to form vocabularies, to which the nearest comparison in English is the phrasal verb where a word can take on a preprosition to give a different meaning. "Mong" is of no exception. The list of combinations of vocabularies can be found in a Chinese Ci Dian ("Ci Dian" is dictionary for words, "Zi Dian" is dictionary for characters). The best Ci Dian for CSL learners is not found among those published by Chinese native speakers but by an editor named John Defrancis. ...

(Leica D-Lux 5) "Shut the duck up! Ng ho tso chu ah shuk da dinwah (Don't make a noise to annoy uncle's phone call)!" Ng ho = don't tso chu = annoy (by making noises) ah shuk = common salutation to elder male persons da = hit dinwah = phone

(Leica D-Lux 5) Cantonese lesson with a pint for this befitting befitting : Yumsink or  literally “drink-victory”, meaning "bottoms up". It is also loosely used interchangeably as "cheers". And depending on the occasion, one doesn't necessarily take it for the surface meaning to empty the content in one go. Yumsink!

(Leica D-Lux 5) Langlui means nymph in Cantonese. But the expression is also used as a universal address of a lady especially when you are going to ask for her assistance or favour.

(Leica X1) Could it be the effect of following the posts of a foodie that I have found myself clicking pictures related to food more often than before? On this note, there is a Chinese proverb equivalent to an English quote, if you've heard of it, "Keep good men company and you shall be of the number". In Cantonese, the Chinese proverb reads out like "Gengchuche Check Gengmugche Hark" (the k ending is silent), or literally "one who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black". Originally, it advises people to be wise about making new friends. But just as any proverbs which have had shifts in meaning as time wears on, the proverb is more often used in a casual and playful way to pass the buck to your friend when you make a blunder or a change. So, my new leaning on doing food-related shots could be "Gengchuche Check Gengmugche Hark". And guess what? I am finishing this with a glass of 2006 Chever...

(Leica D-Lux 5) The Cantonese slang to vividly, but in a playfully vulgar way, moan about the heavy rain is "lockgousee", literally "(it's) raining dog shit" – without specifying it in singular or plural form. Unlike English, the Chinese word in itself does not have a suffixing signifier to indicate the number of things in reference. It has been raining heavily here for a day. The rainy weather is not going to change for the better in the coming week. Sigh, lockgousee all day long!

(Leica X1) "Dabinlo", literally hot potting, is a faddish Cantonese colloquial term amusingly describing the common street scene of smokers taking cigarette breaks around the iconic orange rubbish bins. What is reminiscent of real Cantonese hot potting is not the eating element in smoking but the images of smokers repeatedly dropping ashes into the astray fitted atop the rubbish bins and of the astray giving out smoke from the ashes and lit stubs left in it. (If you don’t know, for Cantonese hot potting, the locals dip raw food into the pot of boiling soup and draw it out for consumption when cooked. An old post about Cantonese hot pot is here ) Contributing to this street hot potting culture is the rolling out of the stringent indoor smoking ban in Hong Kong. Since then, smokers have no chance to assuage their regular spasms of sense of insecurity occurring in indoor places or public transport. To save themselves from dying of not smoking, they hold onto the rubbish b...

(Leica D-Lux 5) On my way home from tonight's talk by Simon Wheatley on his project , I stumbled upon this scene while giving a deep thought to going about a photographic project on a similar aspect of the local culture. Graffiti was not part of the culture among youngsters here until roughly twenty years ago. In recent years, the followers of graffiti have been growing from strength to strength, partly thanks to some voluntary missions offering inexpensive graffiti training to engage and salvage young people from the downwards spiral of family and drug problems. It is an easy guess on the teenage age of the graffiti creator here as the vulgar wording "LONG DICK BOYS" at the top betrays the authorship. For interest, the Cantonese equivalent of "dick" is "look ye", or literally "stick". "Ye" is more of an exclamatory morpheme homomorphic (similar in form) and homophonic to the character meaning "wild" as in "ye yan...

(Leica D-Lux5) All human cultures have seasonal and transitional celebratory rites of some sorts. We celebrate the ushering in of Spring, the coming of age and the going of sickness, to name a few examples. When there is something jolly well happening, we will all be celebrating. Likewise, when there is something as useful as pumping a dry well, all societies will find it off-putting. But for one way or another, the brutal reality behoves us to put up with it no matter how off-putting it is. And for that matter, all human cultures have sarcastic and tranquilising phrases of some sorts to help tide over the coming of bad luck and the going of good fortune. On this note, the colloquial Cantonese term for a traffic penalty ticket is "ngau yuk gone", literally beef jerky. A strong favour to mitigate the bad experience maybe? What is the colloquial term in your culture for a penalty ticket?

(Leica X1) Self-explanatory. All are hung and ready to be grilled, literally. This is Monday. Good luck everyone.

(Ricoh GRD4) This is still a public holiday in Hong Kong. I'm slacking off a bit again. Have a nice day.

(Ricoh GRD4) "Black pearl" is a Cantonese colloquial expression to refer to someone who has a darker skin and a beautiful face. Some years ago, the Popular Photography magazine had an article giving out tips on photographing a group with dark skin-coloured people in it. If I was not mistaken, it advises arranging those persons to the center of the front row, metering them or metering the persons with lighter skin tones while compensating the light loss on the darker faces with fill-in flash. But if there is no flash and the environmental light is minimal, one has to pray for luck. Just as now the sky here has turned very dark after lunch, we have to pray for luck for the coming few days of the Easter holiday. But the weather forcast says that we will have tunderstorms until Monday.