DEFINITELY THE THING THAT IS A THING THAT IS THE THING

It dawned on me that casual readers may be unfamiliar with several of the terms used in daily gibberish written here, and might need a quick bone-up on terminology. Because, though they are 'English as a first language' people, their English is not quite the same as my English.
And thus impaired. Severely.

Here then is a list that will get them up to speed.

Study this well before you visit. It will help.

We'll finally be able to understand you.


THE THINGS

Alabama:   The new Greenland.
Amsterdam:   a lovely walking city with a great soccer team.
Andy Lau:   a singer and actor from Hong Kong, responsible for some very silly stuff.
劉德華 'lau tak waa'.
Anglo Indian food:   a vast, inclusive, and flexible, category of mostly subcontinental dishes, resulting from a melding of European and Indian ideas, cultures, and parentage. Great stuff.
Appendix:   a useless organ that wants to kill you.
闌尾 'laan mei'.
Astley's:   a famous tobacconist at 109 Jermyn Street, whose mixtures became part of the McConnell portfolio, and are still manufactured through Kohlhase & Kopp, though the store has been long closed.
Atjeh:   a territory at the northern end of Sumatra, populated by a stubborn people.
Ballichao:   condiment from Macao or Goa, made with fermented seafood; sometimes also a dish incorporating that condiment.
Bearded dragon:   a small lizard popular as a pet.
Belgian:   an inferior Dutchman.
Bitter melon:   a cucurbit, momordica charantia, which I like and you probably don't.
苦瓜、涼瓜 'fu gwaa','leung gwaa'.
Bitter melon omelette:   delicious, especially with Sriracha.
苦瓜煎蛋 'fu gwaa jin daan'.
Burley:   an air-cured tobacco with low natural sweetness. Useful as a filler or blending component, but too educational really to be smoked on its own.
Brabant:   an area and a province in the Netherlands where some of my ancestors are from, and where I lived from two till eighteen, after my parents left Southern California.
Calvinism:   a severe form of Christianity common in the Netherlands that my ancestors practiced, even after landing in New Amsterdam. We jumped that ship five generations ago, thank heavens. See "Dutch Reformed".
Cantonese:   a mellifluous language derived more directly from Ancient Chinese than Mandarin, as well as speakers of that language from a province in the south of China.
粵語、廣東話 'yuet yü', 'gwong tung waa'.
Cantonese people:   the dominant Sinitic population in San Francisco.
廣東人 'gwong tung yan'.
Chachanteng:   a Hong Kong style tea-restaurant, where club sandwiches, fried noodles, casseroles, and HK style spaghetti, are served, along with super deadly French toast drizzled with syrup and sweetened condensed milk, washed down with strong milk tea. It's necessary for your civilized life, and your doctor won't eat there.
茶餐廳 'chaa chan teng'.
Charatan:   at one time the best briar pipes for tobacco ever made. Far better than Dunhill.
Charsiu turnover:   delicious flaky pastry filled with Cantonese barbecue pork.
叉燒酥 'chaa siu sou'
Chinatown:   a district in San Francisco near my apartment, where I hang out a lot, because I like the food, nobody belly-aches about my smoking, and people don't ask stupid pesky questions about my accent. Okay?
唐人街、唐人阜 'tong-yan kai','tong yan fau'.
Chinese Hospital SF:   a splendid institution that helped me dodge a bullet twice this year.
東華醫院 'tung waa yi yuen'.
Chou Hsuan: 周璇 ('jau suen'), originally named 蘇璞 ('sou pok'), born in 1920, died in 1957, who was a legendary star of Shanghai cinema. Over forty movies and innumerable songs.
Club sandwich:   a popular Hong Kong lunch-time snack served at many chachantengs.
公司三文治 'gong si saam man ji'.
Comoy:   once one of the best brands of briar pipe, up there in the rankings with Barlings, BBB, GBD, Loewe& co., Sasieni, and Charatan.
Cookie:   a Dutch American invention, like the donut.
Cretins:   the Trump administration.
Curry:   咖喱 'gaa lei'.
Curry puff:   a popular and delicious pastry with curry inside.
咖喱角 'gaa-lei kok'.
Den Haag:   "The Widow of the Indies"; Dutch town where the government is located, where retired colonials settled because there was no one left in the provinces whom they knew, and where there were more Indonesian restaurants than anywhere else in the country.
Diabetes:   an affliction of the elderly and the poor; "sugar urine disease".
糖尿病 'tong niu beng'.
Donut:   a Dutch American invention, like the cookie.
Dum alu vindaloo:   an Indian restaurant dish rather similar to tichwan.
Dumpling:   a savoury meat and vegetable filling enclosed in a thin skin of dough, which is delicious.
餃子、水餃 'gaau ji', 'seui gaau'.
Dutch:   see "German".
Dutch man's breeches:   a perennial herbaceous flower native to North America. Dicentra cucullaria
Dutch Reformed:   an ethno-cultural form of Calvinism, marked by anti-social tendencies and severe disapproval of whatever every one else believes or does.
Dutch treat:   a silly American term.
Dutch uncle:   another silly American term.
Egg tarts:   possibly the best snack in Chinatown, egg custard in a flaky crust.
蛋撻 'daan taat'.
Fecalith:   an almost useless medical coinage.
糞石 'fan sek'.
Fledermaus:   a mouse that flitters. It has vlerks.
Flying Jacob:   a Swedish casserole (Flygande Jacob) containing chicken, cream, chili sauce, bananas, roasted peanuts and bacon, seasoned with Italian salad herbs, served with rice and a salad, invented in the Seventies.
Frank Chu:   an honorary Dutchman.
Friesland:   the closest thing to Norway in the Netherlands. A strange place.
Garlic bread: San Francisco French bread slices smeared with garlic grease and toasted.
香蒜麵包 'heung suen min baau'.
General Tso's chicken:   a popular restaurant dish from New York. It's what East Coasters mean when they whine about our Chinese food not being good enough.
左宗棠雞 'jo jung tong gai'.
German:   a hip modern language suitable for making everything you say sound simultaneously serious and absolutely berserk.
Greenland:   America's Belgian Congo. Plantation crops, mineral resources, and golf courses maintained with slave labour.
Hamberder:   food for republicans.
Hamburger:   grilled meat patty in a toasted bun with condiments. Broodje Jantje.
漢堡包 'hon bou baau'
Herring:   a fish best eaten very lightly cured, with chopped onions.
Hello Kitty:   an ironic fashion paradigm.
Holland:   a town in Michigan where people with whom we don't associate dwell.
Hungry Ghost Festival:   fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, when spirits visit the mortal world.
鬼節 'gwai jit'
Indo:   a common term for a Dutch person with some Indonesian cultural inheritance or kin. Often a family history in the East can be assumed, as well as certain tastes and habits. Indo-Dutch.
James J. Fox:   a famous London tobacco house at 19 Saint James Street.
John Cotton Ltd:   a manufacturer of some of the finest pipe tobacco ever, once located at 65 Kingsway.
Kau yiuk:   a lovely fatty pork preparation often including snow cabbage, which really needs a vegetable dish on the side.
梅菜扣肉 'mui choi kau yiuk'.
Ketjap manis:   thick sweet soy sauce common in the Netherlands, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It is a necessary condiment.
Latakia:   a smoke cured tobacco from the Levant used condimentally in many pipe mixtures. It smells of terpeneols and creosote.
Laksa:   Peranakan and Indonesian seafood soup with rice noodles. There are two types, as well as intermediate kinds, namely coconut curry soup, and sour (tamarind broth) soup. Laksa is a perfect exemplar of cross-over cooking.
Leslie Cheung:   A remarkable actor, a good singer, and the kind of man one would like to know.
張國榮 'jeung gwok wing'.
Limburg:   a province in the Netherlands where a peculiar group of dialects are spoken by unintelligible second rate Brabanders.
Marin County:   the region where anti-vax, crystal healing, a horrible sense of entitlement, natural healing, veganism, and white folks yoga, originated.
It is a very silly place.
馬林縣 'maa lam yuen'.
Medan:   a large metropolis in Northern Sumatra. Excellent tobacco ("Deli Tabak") was exported through Belawan harbour there. There is a substantial Chinese community in Medan, mostly speakers of Hokkien.
閩南語、福建話 'man naam yü', 'fok kin waa').
Milk tea:   often also called Hong Kong Milk Tea; a strong brewed beverage mellowed by the addition of sweetened condensed milk; the beverage of choice at a chachanteng.
奶茶 'naai cha'; milk tea. 港式奶茶 'gong sik naai cha'; HK milk tea. 絲襪奶茶 'si mat naai cha'; silk stocking tea, referring to the baggy strainer.
Mitch McConnell:   unspeakable filth.
Molto Dolce:   epic perversion.
Murgh makhni:   tomato cream sauce curry chicken, which is delicious.
Natural healing:   this is what's wrong with white people.
Nicotine:   a study aid.
Norwegian:   a fictional being.
Nurse:   the paradigm of womanhood, armed with needles.
Official and Triad collusion:   part of Hong Kong culture.
官黑勾結 'gun haak gau git'.
Official, Police, and Triad cooperation:   part of Hong Kong culture.
官警黑合作 'gun ging haak hap jok'.
Orange Wang:   an economic columnist based in Hong Kong.
Paisley:   one of the worst things to come out of the seventies.
Penguin:   a flightless seabird. A paradigm of elegance.
Peranakans:   descendants of locally born Chinese in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Java, Sumatra, and Borneo. They have a little non-Chinese in their ancestry, just like Indo-Dutch might have Chinese or Indonesian. Similarly, their cultures and cuisines will incorporate a broad spectrum of ingredients which were not traditional then, but might be customary now.
Peritonitis:   inflammation and infections in the guts, often the result of rupture or incisions.
腹膜炎 'fuk mou yim'.
Perique:   an anaerobically fermented tobacco from Louisiana, often paired with Virginias.
Pipe:   an object made of briar wood for consuming tobacco. A fire cup on a hollow stick, with a mouthpiece of a different material. It is an old-school object of beauty and functionality, which should remind you of engineers, the golden glow of the early sixties, the vast moorlands of Devon, tramp steamers limping into port, continental hotels, happy nuclear families teeming with goldfish, televisions, and new station wagons in the drive way of their spacious ranch-style house, lounge wagons on cross-country railway journeys, after afternoon tea, and elegantly attired advertising executives or doctors, as well as ancient mariners, beloved college professors, philosophers, and French speaking individuals.
If it doesn't, you are defective.
Portuguese chicken rice:   mild coconut curry chicken layered over egg-fried rice with a generous sprinkle of cheese made bubbly under the broiler; a heart attack on a plate. Recipes vary wildly.
焗葡國雞飯 'guk pou gwok gai faan'.
Salt fish:   an important flavour-lending ingredient in much Cantonese cooking, salty, savoury, delicious, and sometimes overpowering.
鹹魚'haahm yü'
Salt fish and chicken fried rice:   precisely what it says. It's delicious.
鹹魚雞粒炒飯 'haahm yü gai naap chaau faan'.
Sambal:   an often necessary component to a meal that makes food more appetizing; hot chili paste with other stuff.
Sambal badjak:   a cooked chili paste with onion or shallot, garlic, shrimp sauce, and lime juice. Probably tme most versatile sambal there is, which can also be used when cooking many dishes. There's a jar in the refrigerator. What Dutch people use in lieu of ketchup and mustard.
Sambal goreng:   in the Netherlands, a condiment made by frying chilies and onion. In Indonesia, a side dish of anything stirfried with chilies.
Seal script:   an archaic form of Chinese writing that pre-dates the brush normally used to form characters.
Unlike modern script, it has round forms and curves, and can be very elegant. Not the earliest Chinese script, but a close relative.
篆書 'suen sü'.
Sepsis:   the result of infections, when the tissues rebel against the contaminative substance or agent; it can be life-threatening, and requires treatment with anti-bacterials or anti-fungals. See a doctor.
敗血症 'paai huet jing'.
Shrimp paste:   pâté de crevette.
Sliced fish congee:   魚片粥 'yü pin juk'.
Spam:   A tasty meat substitute beloved by many ethnic minority Americans, midwesterners, and Philippinos.
午餐肉 'ng chaan yiuk'.
Sriracha:   a condiment made of chilies that makes life lovely.
Stanwell:   a manufacturer of decent pipes in Denmark.
Steamed pork patty:   ground pork with usually slivered ginger and a few slices of salt fish for flavour on top, put on a plate and steamed till done. One of the most quintessential Cantonese home cooked dishes. It's delicious.
鹹魚蒸肉餅 'haam yü jing yiuk beng'
Sturgeon:   a large river fish much prized in certain cuisines.
鱘龍魚 'cham lung yü'.
Surströmming:   rotten fish.
Susie Derkins:   an admirable female, fictional.
Swedish cuisine:   jerk chicken and albondigas.
Tear gas:   a common occurrence in Hong Kong.
淚煙 'leui yin'.
Tilburg:   a quiet college town in the southern part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which has some culinary treats to sample.
Tung Pei-Pei:   a singing star of the Chinese cinema in Shanghai. She moved to Hong Kong in in 1949. Born in 1928, passed away in the late seventies. I have not been able to find out the exact date.
董佩佩 'tung pui pui'.
Trassi:   a firm brick-like fish paste used in Dutch, Indonesian, Malay, and Peranakan cooking.
Virginia:   flue-cured tobacco grown in Brazil, Canada, India, and many parts of Africa. China grows more Virginia and Burley tobacco than any other part of the world. It is marked by a carotenoid fragrance, and must be smoked slowly, on the cusp of going out.
Wonton:   the Cantonese soup dumpling, stuffed with pork and shrimp and served in a broth containing dried flounder, often with noodles, which horrifies Mandarin-speaking bumpkins.
雲吞、雲吞湯麵 'wan tan', 'wan tan tong min'.
Yao Lee:   a great singer born in Shanghai in 1922, passed away in Hong Kong on July 19th. 2019.
姚莉 'yiu lei'.
Yellow croaker:   a tasty food fish.
王花魚 'wong faa yü'.
Yong tau foo:   a treatment for beancurd unlike what most white people do to it. Ground spiced fatty pork and shrimp paste are stuffed into a slit you have made in the side of the tofu, which is then fried and sauced.
Sambal, bean paste, and vinegar are excellent.
釀豆腐 'yeung dau fu'.



You might want to print out this list for easy reference.
It will help you navigate the rapids.
You won't drown.


Now, go have a baked porkchop over spaghetti.
焗豬扒意粉 'guk chyu paa yi fan'.
With lots of cheese.
芝士 'ji si'.




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