Hokkien Jokes

jilang · Post by **jilang** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:05 am

Hi

I'm interested in knowing some Hokkien jokes or funny rhymes. Does anyone know any?

~Jilang

SimL · Post by **SimL** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:58 am

Hi Jilang,

Here are funny poems I posted here last year.

viewtopic.php?t=2698 ("ku ka pih")
viewtopic.php?t=2720 ("thinn oo-oo")

In the first thread, I give 4 links to versions of the poem/song on the internet. The 1st of these 4 is only in characters; the 2nd of the four has characters and POJ; the 3rd of the 4 is now dead, and the 4th of the 4 is in an orthography I am not familiar with.

Am I correct in believing that you don't read characters, but only know Hokkien "orally"? May I ask what your background is, and where you are living at the moment? I'm also interested to know how good (or bad!) your Hokkien is...

Cheers,
Sim.

Sim.

jilang · Post by **jilang** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:08 am

Am I correct in believing that you don't read characters, but only know Hokkien "orally"? May I ask what your background is, and where you are living at the moment? I'm also interested to know how good (or bad!) your Hokkien is...

I can read characters but I'm limited to basic words. As for how good my Hokkien is, it's good for just common conversation (I don't know how to describe it) but my vocabulary is not very large.

Thanks for those links!

SimL · Post by **SimL** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 8:27 am

Hi Jilang,

This is a funny rhyme my mother used to say (non-sandhi tones written):

肚臍深深, 貯三甕金
肚臍 (凸凸?), 貯三甕菜脯

too7-cai5 chim1-chim1, te2 sann1-ang3-kim1
too7-cai5 thoo2-thoo2, te2 sann1-chai3-poo2

(If your) belly-button (is) deep, (it can) hold three urns (of) gold
(If your) belly-button (is) sticks out, (it can only) hold three urns (of) pickled radishes

My mother explains that it's supposed to be an amusing prediction about one's future, said to children. If their navels are deep, then they will be rich, and if their navels stick out, then they will be poor (the '菜脯' being "poor-man's food").

"肚臍深深" on Google gives about 500 hits. I haven't looked at many of them, but none of them seem to have anything to do with "貯三甕金". Unfortunately "貯三甕金" (and even "三甕金") doesn't give any hits. It would appear that this little rhyme of my mother's is not yet on the internet

.

The link below (one of the hits from the Google search on "肚臍深深") is quite funny, and has the advantage of 1) being transcribed in POJ, and 2) having a sound-file one can play to hear it.

http://163.16.116.199/ce/blue/mainb102.htm

Regards,
Sim.

PS. I think '菜脯' are pickled radishes, but I'm not totally sure.

PPS. The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navel tells us that '肚臍深' is known as an "innie", and '肚臍凸' is known as an "outie"

.

casey · Post by **casey** » Wed May 30, 2007 4:07 am

Hi, Jilang and Sim
I have heard of another version about "tO7 cai5 chim1".
"tO7 cai5 chim1, thang1 tue2 kim1; tO7 cai5 thO2, chua7 sui2 bO2". The first part is similar to Sim's version, ("thang1" means "can"), but the second part is to marry a pretty wife instead.

SimL · Post by **SimL** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:24 am

Hi Casey,

Welcome back

>> tO7 cai5 thO2, chua7 sui2 bO2

Thanks for this one. I'll certainly tell my mother about it - she'll be delighted!

Sim.

SimL · Post by **SimL** » Wed May 30, 2007 11:29 am

I decided that your saying is superior to mine, Casey. In your saying, the prediction is positive, whether you have an innie or an outie!

casey · Post by **casey** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 12:02 pm

Hi, Sim

I certainly enjoy being able to come back to this forum. Thank you very much for your kind assistance. I just returned to Singapore and hope to see all our friends (old and new) more often from now on.

SimL · Post by **SimL** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 7:59 am

casey wrote:... I certainly enjoy being able to come back to this forum. ...

Nice to have you back, Casey

.

At the most recent EATS (European Association of Taiwan Studies) annual conference http://www.soas.ac.uk/departments/depar ... ?navid=510, I met a guy whose special subject is "Hokkien film in Malaysia & Singapore in the middle of the 20th century". It was very interesting to speak to him, but one thing he told me was a bit dismaying. Namely that there is practically *no* Hokkien spoken on the streets of Amoy/Xia-men nowadays, because there's been such a massive immigration of non-Hokkien speakers to the city, in the economic boom of the last 10-15 years.

Do you (or any other readers of the Forum who might have been to Amoy/Fujian) have the same impression? Independent of that, to what extent is Hokkien dying out in the smaller towns and in the countryside of (coastal, southern) Fujian?

Sim.

casey · Post by **casey** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:22 pm

I recalled a few years back when I went to Xiamen as a tourist, I was very disappointed that few people on the street spoke Hokkien. Even the tour guide in Gulangyu (KO2-1 Long7-3 Su7, the island beside Xiamen) could not speak Hokkien at all. At that time, it seemed to me that Hokkien was dying.

During this trip, I passed through Xiamen on my way back to Singapore. People on the street did use Mandarin more often than Hokkien but shop assistants in most shops still speak Hokkien most of the time. In the hotel (a respectable international hotel) where I stayed, most staff spoke Hokkien among themselves.

So, Sim, I guess we can rest assured that Hokkien is not dying in Xiamen.