It’s been almost 3 months since I have arrived in Hong Kong and I can say my Chinese is improving at a scary speed. In Hong Kong, the primary language is Cantonese where in Mainland China the official language is Mandarin. Now Cantonese and Mandarin are already different as they can be, but standard Cantonese versus spoken Cantonese are also very different. Standard Cantonese is what is used for the newspapers and some news reports while spoken Cantonese is what is used for everyday speech and for texting/talking online. When I text my cousins on Whatsapp, I ask them to text in Chinese because I want to be able to recognize characters, and if I come across something I have never seen before, I will write it out on my Macbook and have the system read it out to me. The Macbook having this option has been one of the key reasons why my reading has improved a lot. Aside from reading, my spoken Cantonese is also improving! I noticed when I first got here, I would stay quiet or talk in a really soft voice because I felt people would give me that judgmental stare, but I’m slowly shaking it off. My local friends have told me that my Cantonese is really good (little to no accent!), which gives me more confidence to speak Cantonese. It also helps that I translate for my roommate when we’re out but I still find it difficult when locals speak really fast (I’m getting there though!)
Ordering food here is still a challenge. My roommate and I usually steer away from places without an English translation or places that do not use the number system. This is usually a problem in the more local districts (ie. Kowloon City) but less on Hong Kong Island where most expats live. This limits a lot of our options but we’re slowly beginning to expand. If we do get in a tough situation, we just point to a certain menu item and hope we will get what we think we ordered.
One of the many things I have tried while I am in Hong Kong is their street food. Hong Kong has so many different kinds of street foods to offer, like fish balls, eggettes (called gai daan jai in Cantonese), stinky tofu and more. I have tried the stinky tofu and let’s just say it taste like it sounds. I have a strong stomach and will pretty much eat anything that is edible but woah, stinky tofu is not my cup of tea at all. When you walk down the streets of Mongkok and you smell something like trash/sewage water, it is probably stinky tofu. I recommend if you ever have to chance to go to Hong Kong to try stinky tofu just to say, “Yeah, I tried stinky tofu!” But stinky tofu is a popular street item, along with my favorite eggettes! From how my roommate describes them, they taste like sweet pancakes but in puffball forms!
(Eggettes)
(Stinky Tofu image credit)