Friday, October 22, 2010

CANTONESE GIRLS

Over on Facebook, sparkling little minx and fellow-blogger Steffy Chou asked about herring, and wrote: "Feel free to wax lyrical about herring on your blog. And stop speculating about Cantonese girls. We're normal, you aren't."
Earlier she had said: "For the life of me I cannot figure out whether his primary fetish is Cantonese girls or pipe-smoking."
She kindly provided a link to a previous post in which I mentioned search criteria by which readers found this place. Hence the linking of Cantonese girls and herring.


Well now. Two things:

1.
You'll find everything I have to say about herring here and here
[FAT GREEN VIRGINS: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2006/06/fat-green-virgins.html
FAT LITTLE VIRGINS: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2010/08/fat-little-virgins.html
Both essays have the words 'fat' and 'virgins' in the title. This confuses the occasional internet-wandering pervert. They would be better off with herring anyway. They just don't know it yet.]
2. I do like speculating about Cantonese girls. Boy howdy.


Actually, I like speculating about girls period. They are a fascinating subject. But I wouldn't describe 'Cantonese girls' as a fetish. Earlier on my blog I had mentioned that I like women who are shorter than me, and I may have also mentioned round heads and dark hair.
Having lived most of my childhood and adolescence in the Netherlands, you will probably understand that blondes who are taller than me are not exactly rain in my world. Nor, given my ambivalence about the Dutch, particularly an objective.
Most of the girls I ever had a crush on were indeed significantly shorter than myself - I don't like staring up at chins - though some of them were indeed blondes.

In particular, from my high school years I remember Bertje Klerk and Uki Schneider as stunning and loveable. Very nice girls, pale soft butter-blondes.

[Intelligent, too. Which may explain why I remember them. Stupid people are not memorable.]

However, Cantonese girls are quite delightful.

Whoever came up with the term 'Inscrutable Oriental' had never met the Cantonese. The term 'inscrutable' just does NOT apply. How can you possibly describe as 'inscrutable' an ethnic group which lives operatically at full volume, has a vocabulary that blisters paint, and expresses itself best through either insurrection or cooking?

There's an adventurousness and obstinacy to the Cantonese that is both endearing and unusual.

That isn't particularly surprising, given their history: Guangdong was Sinified by smugglers, pirates, incendiarists, criminals, dissidents, and tax-dodgers, as well as people who just wanted to get the hell away. The area south of the passes was long regarded as the wild frontier, where civilized people would suffer untold miseries surrounded by the wild Yuet, Man, Mang, Mieu, Yao and Fan tribes.
Nice polite Northern Chinese had no desire to go there. Nope. Not just Chinese enough. Too hot. Weird food. And they talk funny.

[Guangdong (廣東):'Broad East'; Canton province, the eastern part of the area south of the passes (嶺南 Ling Nan - another name for Kwantung). Yuet (越, 粵): the first character means 'frontier', and nowadays is applied to Vietnam (越南 South of the Frontiers). The second character is cognate and homophonous, originally a graphic representation of something creepy-crawly. It is the one-character referent for Canton Province and Cantonese things.
Man (蠻), Mang (芒), Mieu (苗), Yao (猺) and Fan (番): names of various tribes. The character for Man (蠻) shows a twisty critter underneath a cocoon, indicating that they weren't considered human, but rather repulsive, almost reptilian. Mang and Mieu both show the grass radical, as if the tribes in question were wild growths. Yao has the wild beast radical next to a phonetic element, and Fan has always meant barbarian.
White people are often refered to as Lofan' (佬番).]

BALLS!

The average Cantonese person does not whine about having been caught breaking the law - instead, they'll simply resolve to be a far better criminal next time.
And, if you're Cantonese, there's ALWAYS a next time.
The Cantonese combine chutzpah, cojones, and a brashly positive outlook.


粵女 YUET NUI

[Girl from Viet, as in the line 誰憐越女顏如玉 , 貧賤江頭自浣紗 ('shui lien Yuet-nui ngaan yu yuk, pan daam gong tou ji wun saa?'): "who notices the girl from Viet with a face like white jade, humbly washing silk alone down at the river bank?" Final line from a poem (洛陽女兒行) by Wang Wei (王維), T'ang Dynasty period.]

So in some sense, then, I do indeed have a fetish for Cantonese-American girls.
Feisty, at times foul-mouthed, and seriously into food.
Things like that I can definitely deal with.

I am not particularly intrigued by Japanese women, Filippinas, or other Asian-American types.
Northern Chinese can be very attractive - but they just aren't very interesting.
Taiwanese tend to whine in baby-like little-girl voices.... uuurghhh!
Shan't say anything about Shanghainese. Or Szechuanese. Or Fujianese. Nope, not my type. Dull.

And while I like the cuisine of nearly every place in South-East Asia, I am not interested in the women from those climes. Yes, many of them can be beautiful. But they have as little appeal as stuck-up European women, Irish-Americans, and chunky San Francisco Cholitas.
Or girls with tattoos.

Anger and indignation I can deal with. That, at least, demands to be treated as an equal.
Whining, pouting, and an attitude of entitlement are immediately repulsive.



背脊向天,都可以食
BUI-JIK HEUNG TIEN, DOU HO-YI SIK

[Anything with its back to the sky can be eaten!]

A lack of culinary curiosity also disenchants. One must be broad-minded!
Food is the great passion, finding new edible things and figuring out how best to prepare them is inexhaustibly intriguing.
The Cantonese approach to food is extremely appealing.
Almost a way of life.

So yes, Cantonese-American women excite me. They're like Belgians. Except smaller, angrier, and more opinionated. Zesty.

..............

I just need to find one who likes the smell of pipe-tobacco.


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