Hokkien words in Thai

[AndrewAndrew]

I think the forum owners are doing a very bad job - it is not just this forum but every single forum on chineselanguage.org that is being spammed. It is the same usernames that have been posting spam for the past 3-4 days. They are even posting announcements, which ordinary users can't normally do. Many of us on this forum probably visit it every day or every other day - do the owners visit it once a month?

Add to that the times when this forum is completely down or when the layout is broken. We should definitely think about archiving all our material on here and moving to a more reliable forum.

[amhoanna]

Interesting. So we have gùlái (PgHK) vs kalí (TW) vs kēng / kalí (Bagan).

[niuc]

Yes, gulai is a Malay word for curry.

The spammers are very irritating. How come they are so diligent? Using software? Hope their accounts will be disabled soon...

[AndrewAndrew]

Curry in Penang is gu1/5/7-lai2 or sometimes ka2-li2. It depends on the dish - gu-lai-ke but ka-li-hu-thau.

[SimL]

Hooray! The moderators cleaned up that ugg spam! Weird is that there's a major advertising campaign going on in Amsterdam at the moment for these ugg-boots. I knew them when I was living in Australia, but didn't know that they were distinctly Australian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugg_boots

Yes, there's also "ka3-li2-mai7-fan5", which is noodles in curry soup, where the "mai7-fan5" is (I think) just "bi-hun" in Cantonese.

[niuc]

Yes, thanks a lot to moderators for removing the spams!

Yes, there's also "ka3-li2-mai7-fan5", which is noodles in curry soup, where the "mai7-fan5" is (I think) just "bi-hun" in Cantonese.

Sim, so in Penang you call "ka3-li2-bi2-hun2" as "ka3-li2-mai7-fan5"? In Bagan I used to wonder about the meaning of 'chiong3-pan5' and 'han5-ci3-ping3/5', and only in Singapore I came to know that they were corrupted pronunciation of Cantonese 豬腸粉 and 鹹芝餅.

We also call wonton noodles 雲吞(餛飩)麵 as 'uan5-than1-mi7' (the first two TLJ follow Cantonese pronunciation), either as often or slightly more often than 扁食麵 'pian2-sit8-mi7' (original Hokkien term). But without 麵, we always call wonton as 扁食 'pian2-sit8' e.g. 扁食湯 'pian2-sit8-thng1' . This term in Indonesian becomes pangsit e.g. mie pangsit.

[SimL]

Hi niuc,

Sim, so in Penang you call "ka3-li2-bi2-hun2" as "ka3-li2-mai7-fan5"?

I'll have to check with my parents as it's a long time since I've eaten it (or perhaps Andrew or Mark can tell us for sure). My memory of "ka3-li2-mai7-fan5" is a mix of egg noodles and rice noodles (i.e. the yellow ones and the white ones - "mee" and "bee-hoon", to use the popular Malaysian spellings), with deep-fried tofu ("tau-hu-phok"), bean-sprouts ("tau-gE"), blood-cockles ("(si)-ham"), in a reddish-yellowish curry soup. [BTW, I've never known what the "si" in "si-ham" meant. As a child, I used to think it was just the English word "sea"!]

So, despite the "mai7-fan5" in the name, I think there are also egg noodles in the dish.

We also call wonton noodles 雲吞(餛飩)麵 as 'uan5-than1-mi7' (the first two TLJ follow Cantonese pronunciation), either as often or slightly more often than 扁食麵 'pian2-sit8-mi7' (original Hokkien term). But without 麵, we always call wonton as 扁食 'pian2-sit8' e.g. 扁食湯 'pian2-sit8-thng1' . This term in Indonesian becomes pangsit e.g. mie pangsit.

Wow, very interesting for me to learn this, thanks! In Penang, I had never heard the term 扁食 'pian2-sit8'. Like you, we call the noodle dish with wontons "uan-than mi", but we also call the actual things themselves "uan-than". Because if this, I've always thought it was a Hokkien word. Furthermore, I only learnt of the word "pangsit" when I came to live here in Holland, where it is used exclusively for the *deep-fried* wontons. I used to wonder where this Indonesian/Dutch word came from, and now I know!

[In fact, when I first came to live in Holland in the late 80's, there were - to my utter amazement - *no* noodle soups of any kind in Chinese(-Indonesian) restaurants - noodles were only ever served fried in Chinese-Indonesian restaurants. Nowadays one can get noodle soups, but that is a result of globalization, and only introduced in the course of the (late) 90's / early 2000's. I suppose that even in the 80's one could have got noodle soups in the heart of Chinatown, but these would not have been on the menu, and one would have had to ask for them in Cantonese - in the "typical" Chinese-Indonesian restaurant (there was one in *every* suburb - the 'local/corner Chinese restaurant', where the menu was in Dutch (plus Chinese characters) - and where many Dutch families would eat say once a month - there were no noodle soups. Like I said, I was amazed to find this when I first got here - I guess it could have been an adaptation to Dutch tastes, where a "soup" would never constitute a "main meal" (on the other hand, it wasn't ever on the menu as a "starter"/"appeterif" either).]

On the subject of noodle dishes with Cantonese names, there was a noodle dish served in Penang when I was young called "kuan-lo mi". It was made with a thin, slightly (but only very slightly) translucent/waxy type of noodle - not as thick as egg noodles, but not as thin as rice noodles, and it was served with a very thick, oily sort of sauce/gravy (from memory, with thin slices of "cha-siu"). In contrast to the word "uan-than", I've always had the idea that this "kuan-lo" was not a Hokkien word, but a Cantonese one.

Is this a well-known dish in the rest of the (South) Chinese diaspora?

[AndrewAndrew]

On the subject of noodle dishes with Cantonese names, there was a noodle dish served in Penang when I was young called "kuan-lo mi". It was made with a thin, slightly (but only very slightly) translucent/waxy type of noodle - not as thick as egg noodles, but not as thin as rice noodles, and it was served with a very thick, oily sort of sauce/gravy (from memory, with thin slices of "cha-siu"). In contrast to the word "uan-than", I've always had the idea that this "kuan-lo" was not a Hokkien word, but a Cantonese one.

Is this a well-known dish in the rest of the (South) Chinese diaspora?

Kon-lo miN is indeed Cantonese - I think it just means "dry" noodles. The noodles, wan-than, chha-siu and vegetables are the same as in the "wet" wan-than miN, only the sauce is different. Like many Cantonese dishes, I still think it's better made in Penang than anywhere else! I haven't been able to get it in London.

[SimL]

Hi Andrew,

Excellent, thanks! Indeed, it was "kOn-lo", not "kuan-lo". Once you said it, I realised that my memory hadn't been completely accurate. I guess the non-Hokkien phonology of "kOn" might been on of the reasons that even back then I subconsciously knew that it wasn't a Hokkien word.

Very interesting that it's not available in London, as London Chinatown is very very Cantonese...

[niuc]

Hi Sim

Based on your description about "ka3-li2-mai7-fan5", except the egg noodles, it is very similar to laksa in Singapore (not the Penang asam laksa). Bagan version of laksa is called 'lak4-sai1-uan1'. I am not sure what is 'uan1', 'lak4-sai1' is laksa+i. Tang-ua* 同安 Hokkien often adds "-i" e.g. 'thor5-kha1' (ground) + 'a8' = 'thor5-khai1-a8'; guava 'na-a-puat' is 'nai2-a2-puat8'. It is basically similar to Singapore laksa but instead of thick rice noodles, we only use thin ones. Bagan laksa doesn't have deep-fried tofu, but deep-fried pig-skin (ba4-pher5) or deep-fried fish stomach (hy5-pio7) or none. Sometimes blood-cockles can be replaced with chicken or pork. O yeah, and a lot of potatoes.

Furthermore, I only learnt of the word "pangsit" when I came to live here in Holland, where it is used exclusively for the *deep-fried* wontons. I used to wonder where this Indonesian/Dutch word came from, and now I know!

Oh, so "piansit" is not used in Penang... Yes, that is "pangsit goreng" which is common in Jakarta but I don't remember seeing that in Bagan.

Thanks, interesting to know about Dutch not having "soup"... not even chicken or mushroom soup?

I had never heard about "kon-lo mi". I suppose the TLJ is 乾撈麵. What we call 'uan-than/pian-sit-mi' is usually served dry (no soup or sauce/gravy) with a separate bowl of clear soup. In Singapore there is Sarawak "kolo mi", which looks the same as Bagan "uan-than-mi"... I suspect "kolo" is a corruption of "konlo".