Encountered a rather amusing and yet a tad sad incident recently. Recently, I was in the queue for payment in FairPrice with my kiddos. The endlessly long and never-seem-to-move queue means a very restless toddler and a very impatient 9 year old. Thankfully my firstborn was blissfully unaffected as she is a people observer and loves to just people watch (and sometimes stone :P)
As the queue moves at a snail's pace, my toddler took to irritating his already irritated older sibling. My No.2 was suitably UNamused and before long, it had escalated into a shoving match (SIGH!). As I TRY to mediate and move along the queue at the same time, The usual phrases of "Stop that!", "Behave!", "Don't be naughty!" all came rolling naturally off my tongue. However, what seemed the norm to me, was apparent rather unusual as I finally caught on to it when an aunty ahead of me, turned, stared and then approached me. I was getting ready for a "talking-to" for not being able to "control" my kids etc etc. Her words, however, floored me!
"Do they really understand what you have said?" That innocent question stopped me in my (many) trains of thoughts. For a full 5 seconds, I did not understand her question. I am speaking human right? I do not speak alien so what kind of question is that?!?! Then it strike me - I was speaking in both Teochew and Hokkien! Both dialects are second nature to us, YES even to my kiddos!
Some background...
Both hubby and myself were brought up by our grandparents. This then made us effectively "tri-lingual" as we could speak in English, Chines and dialect effectively. We also communicate with each other in dialects at home when we have our own family. Naturally our kiddos then picked up the dialects as well though I must say that we do put in extra effort to make sure that they know their dialects. It is something important to both of us. We believe in preserving the language of our culture and this is one of the most basic of our way of communication.
As we grow older, it became quite glaringly obvious that many people of our generation do not know their own dialects. It may not be a subject that is examined in school but to both of us, it carries with it the core of our being a Chinese and being a Teochew or Hokkien. It is thus rather sad to know that as society "progresses" local dialects are deemed "less important" and therefore little effort is put into learning and preserving them. I have heard (many times) that why do we go to such trouble? Anyway it is not an academic subject and not much people know it anyway!
There are actually many amusing idioms in dialects. One of the more commonly used ones in my family will be "one bag of sesame seeds with none into the ear". Loosely translated it means having so many seeds but none were where it should be. It used to denote the many reminders etc without any actually "going into the ear" or listened to. This was frequently used by my mom (but of course) on my kiddos to remind them to do this or that :P
Another cute one will be "a three-ounce kitten trying to carry a four-ounce rat". This denotes one trying to carry something or someone heavier than himself. Normally used by my mom when my super petite No.2 is trying to carry her younger brother who is just a few kgs lesser than her!
One more? My mom used to say this whenever we do things the hard way when there is an easier path :P Ready? It goes "instead of scratching the itchy part, we scratched the painful part" It was such an apt description that it never fails to register with us the futility of what we are doing!
For this, I am very glad that both hubby and myself agreed on preserving this very important part of our culture. It may just be yet another language but it is OUR language. Why learn a foreign language that we may not use at all? Why deemed it "less important" just because it is not an academic subject? To each his own I guess. No matter, I am glad, very glad (and comforted) that my kiddos understand and can speak both Teochew and Hokkien. Yes, they may not speak it as fluently as hubby and myself but they do understand it and they can speak it relatively well.
This reminds me. There was a nursery rhyme in Teochew that my mom sings to us. It has a catchy tune and humorous lyrics. I MUST remember to record her singing it and to get the words down!
So, do you speak your dialect? Fluently? Does your kids know them too?
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