Learning Teochew in Hong Kong

And from Hong Kong is a documentary about dying regional Chinese languages and cultures. Featured prominently is Teochew (aka: Chiu Chow). Check out the video about 50 seconds in and you'll see some gang-hude as well as a class learning Teochew. Awesome no? The whole thing is in Cantonese, but the subtitles are in Mandarin (or is it just Mandarin-style Cantonese?). Credit goes to Gaginang poster NG for posting this on Gaginang's messageboard first.

Gaginang Conference 2011 in Oakland, CA, USA

Check out an awesome event for anyone interested in Teochew-ness: Gaginang's biennial conference, and not just because I co-founded this organization (and am a current staff member), but because its really an awesome event where you get to meet other Teochew nang who are into their Teochew-ness. And to anyone who doesn't happen to live in California: imagine 100+ young Teochews happily learning, talking, and thoroughly enjoying their Teochew heritage. Make the journey - how many conferences do you know like this? eh???? What do you say? "Uabe jing AWESOME" is what I say! Cool speakers, awesome workshops, fun games, and more stuff I don't even know.. =)

Learn more and register OFFICIAL 2011 CONFERENCE

• August 13-14, 2011 (Saturday 9am - 9pm and Sunday 9am - 3pm)
• Oakland, CA, USA
• Register early to get a discounted registration price (c'mon, if you're Teochew you want to save some money, Let's be real!)

Top 5 Myths about Learning Teochew

Here are some myths I'd like to debunk... 

5. 8 TONES IS TOO MANY
Technically, two of those eight only occur with words that end with "-p", "-k", or the glottal stop "-t". Three more are flat (one low pitch, one medium pitch, one high pitch). One falls, one rises, and the last dips. That's all! Maybe I'll create a video for this...

4. TEOCHEW IS VERY SIMILAR TO MANDARIN
Teochew is in the Minnan group of languages, which, when considering all other Chinese dialects, is the least related to Mandarin.

3. SINCE ALL CHINESE DIALECTS SHARE THE SAME SCRIPT, WE CAN JUST USE ANY WRITTEN CHINESE AND READ IT OUT AND LEARN FROM IT IN TEOCHEW.
That first part is true, BUT, the translation would sound horrible, and unnatural. A little history: Before the 1920s all of China wrote this obscure ancient written language known as Classical Chinese. It's like the Latin of Chinese. So imagine, that every time you have any news, official decrees, or learning of any kind, you'd have to do it in Latin (rather than the language you speak on a day-to-day basis). Well, that sucked, so champions of the people decided to go au-natural... so since  the 1920s China has officially written the vernacular, or writing that reflects what people speak. The only problem is that China had all these dialects... so they decided to create an artificial language called "Putonghua" BUT, eventually this created language was lik 98% based on Mandarin anyway, so the other dialects got shafted. Fast forward to the modern day and practically any time you see Chinese writing, you will see Mandarin writing. That's as if English readers had to write their language in German.... well not exactly like that, but you get my point.

So what his all means is that when you see Mandarin writing and try to read it out in Teochew, the basic jist will probably eke through but it will sound ridiculous. For example...

他们不要学中文  

Mandarin: Tamen bu yao xue zhongwen. 

Mandarin-style Teochew: Tameung buk iao ot dongbhung. 

Colloquial Teochew: inang mai ot dongbhung.

Different huh? I propose using Teochew characters (which there are), and Teochew peng-im to learn Teochew. Makes sense doesn't it? I will create a list of common Teochew words that are different from Mandarin. A side note that Cantonese does the same exact thing - they use different characters to write those parts that aren't in Mandarin.

2. I CAN'T EXPRESS MYSELF IN TEOCHEW
That's why you have to learn all the little nuances, phrases, idioms, to do so.

1. TEOCHEW IS A LOST CAUSE/MANDARIN IS WAY MORE USEFUL

If we follow that logic then why don't we tell everyone in the world to stop learning their languages and say keep three around... English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Cool? NOT COOL! The only way Teochew will become useful is when we decide to use it in our daily lives, and to make it important enough for children/adults/non-Teochew people to learn it!

Thanks for reading this diatr... I mean listicle!

-Ty

Teochew Speech at Singapore Worker's Party Rally (April 28, 2011)

Found this speech by Low Thia Khiang at a Singapore Worker's Party Rally. I don't know much about Singaporean politics, but it speaks volumes that people are still holding speeches in Teochew - that means that there are still people (at least in Hougang - an area of Singapore with lots of Teochew) who can understand it, and that probably want to hear it. One might think that the Singaporean gov't might ban speeches in dialect - and force them speakers to use one of the four official languages (English, Mandarin, Malay, or Tamil... particularly English and Mandarin nowadays)... but no... interesting. On the speech itself, I rather like his Gek-io: accent... very agreeable to my ears. =)

Teochew Music Video from Khuntien Indonesia: "I'll Be Back To You"

Is this the Teochew Richie Ren? No, but good nonetheless - It's another song from Khuntien Indonesia. This is a sappy romantic ballad - usually not my cup of tea, but I couldn't help but post it because it's just awesome hearing Teochew, from Indonesia, no less. Plus, I can understand the lyrics - always a good sign! This really tells you about how many Teochew people there must be in Pontianak. Another reason to visit!