RABBIT RABBIT!

Rabbit rabbit! It's the first of the month, one must say 'rabbit rabbit' for good luck. So I do. When I got up there was a crow in the airwell making crow-noises. Probably the equivalent. First cup of coffee, then out with a pipe. Which, this morning, was a squat tanshell bulldog filled with Atalaya. Perfect for Springtime weather, which this isn't. It had rained overnight.

And it was cold.

Yesterday after leaving the restaurant where I had a late lunch there was a flock of parrots on Trenton Street (登頓街) being loud and cheerful, much like an eatery filled with Cantonese people enjoying lots of good food. As there had been, moments earlier, where I ate salt fish and preserved meats claypot rice (鹹魚臘味煲仔飯 'haam yü laap mei pou jai fan').

When I got there, it was empty. It takes approximately half an hour to do claypot rice -- which they are known for and list a score of choices on the whiteboard -- and when my order came all the tables had filled up. The nearest ones occupied by people speaking Toishanwaa (臺山話) including four well-behaved kiddies, everyone mildly overjoyed at the prospect of eating home-town food made by home-town people. The Cantonese speakers at one of the further tables were probably not even cognizant that they were a minority at that point. In many of the Chinatown restaurants there will be di or triglossic cacaphony in any case, sometimes even different languages at each table. And because I eat alone, my table (middle-aged single man, no companion, with clackity chopstickes) gets to listen in on all of that.

But don't worry. If you aren't speaking in Dutch, English, German, Indonesian, Cantonese, Mandarin, or Toishanese, I won't understand more than a word or two, and unless I know you from Adam I won't keep it in mind for the next time I see you. Well, excepting Shanghainese; I will recognize about a third of the words surrounded by your leaky radiator speech, and build an imaginary situation around them. Much like my appartment mate does when watching a Taiwanes soap opera on the television.

Which is on the telly because I'm watching it.
Mostly observing patterns of behaviour.
Weeping jag, anger, weeping jag.
Despondency. Despair.
And repeat.


Shanghainese (上海話，滬語 'seung hoi waa, wu yü') and related regionalects are quite different from Cantonese and Toishanese. They are from the Wu (吳語 'ng yü') branch of the Sinitic languages, whereas the latter are forms of Yue speech (粵語 'yuet yü'). The relation is like Ostrogothic versus English and Dutch. Yes, for clarity I should also mention how these all compare to Mandarin, but it would muddle the water. Which is troebel enough already.

Like most of yesterday it is low fifties at best right now, with a windchill factor because of the wetness. Very disppointing, I had thought that the end of the nasty weather was in sight.
I shall grumble. Rabbit rabbit.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================