Majong with the taaitaai's
I'm taking 12 hours of Cantonese this semester. My Cantonese class is composed of 5 Japanese women, one Korean woman, one Thai woman and one Korean man. Almost all of the women are in Hong Kong because their boyfriend/fiance/husband is from Hong Kong or works in Hong Kong. Often if your husband has a work visa, you are not allowed to work in Hong Kong, so these women are taking Cantonese since they can't work. Some of them speak a bit of English, but we converse in Cantonese, so my details on them are a bit sketchy. I affectionately refer to them as the taaitaai's (ladies or married women in Cantonese). They are all between 25 and 35 and like hanging out together since they don't know that many people in Hong Kong. So I'm on a mission to make friends with the taaitaai's.
One of my Cantonese teachers invited my class to an evening of majong and dinner last night. So we met in the Fo Tan train station and headed to a nice Chinese restaurant. We had a private room reserved. Mr. Lee explained the basics of majong and we played a couple of rounds. I struggled a bit since I can't read the traditional characters for numbers, but it was lots of fun. We then had a delicious dinner. The low point in the evening was when the waiter brought me a fork. Ouch. In case I had forgotten that I was the only white person in the room.
I've found that any time I attempt Cantonese I get complimented on how good my Cantonese is. Since my Cantonese is quite bad, I accept these somewhat insincere compliments as kind encouragement. If I weren't white, I doubt people would be so complimentary, but I'll take it with a grain of salt and appreciate the encouragement. I was particularly surprised that the women in my class would also feel the need to tell me that my Cantonese was good. After all, they sit in class with me, they've heard my tones (or lack thereof). I think being white automatically means that I get more credit for learning Cantonese than I possibly deserve. I guess when people stop telling me how good my canto is, I'll know it's finally passable.
One of my Cantonese teachers invited my class to an evening of majong and dinner last night. So we met in the Fo Tan train station and headed to a nice Chinese restaurant. We had a private room reserved. Mr. Lee explained the basics of majong and we played a couple of rounds. I struggled a bit since I can't read the traditional characters for numbers, but it was lots of fun. We then had a delicious dinner. The low point in the evening was when the waiter brought me a fork. Ouch. In case I had forgotten that I was the only white person in the room.
I've found that any time I attempt Cantonese I get complimented on how good my Cantonese is. Since my Cantonese is quite bad, I accept these somewhat insincere compliments as kind encouragement. If I weren't white, I doubt people would be so complimentary, but I'll take it with a grain of salt and appreciate the encouragement. I was particularly surprised that the women in my class would also feel the need to tell me that my Cantonese was good. After all, they sit in class with me, they've heard my tones (or lack thereof). I think being white automatically means that I get more credit for learning Cantonese than I possibly deserve. I guess when people stop telling me how good my canto is, I'll know it's finally passable.
posted by Martha Fulford at 11:28 PM
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