areca / betel / pinang / pinln̂g / punln̂g / 檳榔

[amhoanna]

I'd like to ask everyone:

1) What do U and the people around U call areca in your/their dialect of Hokkien?

2) Do U or the people around U chew pinang?

[Ah-bin]

In Ta-kau (Ko-hiong) 高雄 once I remember there was a betel stand on a corner I passed on the way to a place I worked which had a huge pink sign saying in English

B2Chewing Gum - Made in Taiwan B2

They had to change the sign later because hardly anyone understood it. But what i loved best about it was how they wrote "B2" ........a play on words for "b-nng" pin-nng!

[amhoanna]

Yeah, betel stands have the best names! A "bright spot" in a culture that's so big on things like conformity, and survival. Ugh, as if. They can have their Lin Zhiling and Xiao S. I'll go with the next betel babe on the highway.

[Ah-bin]

I was told....just don't look at their fingers!

[niuc]

In Bagansiapiapi we call areca/betel/pinang nut as lau2-ci2 荖籽, eaten with lau2-hio8 荖葉. I just found out that betel nut (areca) and betel leaf are totally two different plants!

I have never known any Chinese in Indonesia, Singapore & Malaysia who chew pinang. It was exclusively associated with 番人, at least in my impression. I heard some said that Baba/Nyonya did, but I am not sure. So I was quite shocked to know that Taiwanese chew pinang (from tv programs)!

[Ah-bin]

In Bagansiapiapi we call areca/betel/pinang nut as lau2-ci2 荖籽, eaten with lau2-hio8 荖葉. I just found out that betel nut (areca) and betel leaf are totally two different plants!

Don't worry Niuc, most human cultures that have come into contact with the custom of betel-chewing have made the same mistake for hundreds of years! Even in English they did it. The nut is actually from the areca palm, and should by rights be called the areca nut. The name betel belongs to the vine alone (the 荖 in Chinese), but has become attached to the nut by association.

I have never known any Chinese in Indonesia, Singapore & Malaysia who chew pinang. It was exclusively associated with 番人, at least in my impression. I heard some said that Baba/Nyonya did, but I am not sure. So I was quite shocked to know that Taiwanese chew pinang (from tv programs)!

Actually most of the southern Chinese were betel chewers for over a thousand years right up until the eighteenth century. Not just Hokkiens either but Cantonese as well! Hunanese still chew betel, which they eat as a half nut dried covered with a sweet hardened paste. From the look of the silver betel boxes, the Babas and Nyonyas borrowed their chewing culture from the malays, rather than maintaining the Chinese tradition. I often wonder why the custom died out in China. In Vietnam now it is usually older women in rural areas who chew betel, but most people used to chew it in the past.

I've just found an excellent article I have about betel is now online!
http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Global ... _Usage.pdf
It even has some statistics!

My favourite betel nuts are 007雙子星, two juicy little nuts wrapped in betel leaf with lime and some tasty spices...yum! (Just edited this to add that it's a Taiwanese style of chewing them)

[SimL]

I heard some said that Baba/Nyonya did, but I am not sure.

This is 100% accurate! My (Baba) grandmother's generation - born around 1900 - was the absolutely last one which chewed betel nut, and even in that generation practically no one did it - none of my great-aunts (i.e. my grandmother's generation) did it. In the generation above that - born around 1875 - *one* of my father's great-aunts did, but it was even then it was unusual enough for my father to remember it as a distinct characteristic of hers. It was for that generation certainly one of the things which distinguished Babas from Sin-Khehs. As far as I know, it was something mostly done only by the womenfolk.

According to my father's accounts of his childhood, wedding invitations (in an age before the telephone) would be issued to the whole extended family by hiring a trishaw, and going around to each household to tell them about the impending wedding and the date. If I recall correctly, this act was (curiously) called "pang-lau-hioh" 放荖葉.

[Ah-bin]

Here are some quotes about betel cheweing from Douglas:

bé-kháu , to dress gaudily, as a fast young fellow; walking with large turban, and with jacket half-open, in a swaggering or bullying manner, eating much betelnut, and ready to quarrel with any one.

I think the characters are supposed to be 尾口. I suppose this means some people in Amoy were still chewing! Betel never had this effect on me, just made me want to sit and relax and sweat a bit!

chhi."-é. (F.), the areca palm. chhi"-i- chi, betelnut from Formosa, green and soft.

This is the word I was taught to refer to the nuts that are cut in half and have paste in them, although the Tâi-tiong friend who taught me pronounced it chheⁿ-á (I think he was the one who taught me). I think they write it 菁仔. The ones I prefer are eaten are Pau-hióh-á 包葉仔 wrapped in a leaf, with no red paste.

Kam-á-bít, a condiment chewed with betelnut and siri leaf

under the character 甘

Láu (R. ló). láu-hióh， siri or betel leaf. láu-hióh-chí, betel-nut. tsúi-láu (P.), a water-plant
with a leaf very like betel-leaf.

nn^g [R. lêng, a sort of palm]. pin-nn^g, the areca palm ; the betel-nut (a Malay word). pin-nn^g-sū, Penang island; said also of a small rocky island shaped like a betel-nut.

pin (R. id.), (C. pun). pin-nn^g, the areca palm; the areca or betel-nut (v. nn^g).

Sē-chhut-lâi, to come flowing out, as saliva or betel-nut juice from the mouth.

So it seems as if there was still some culture of betel-chewing in Amoy 1873, or at least

Barclay has a few quotes too this one is the most important I think:

Nn^g (R. lông, a sort of palm). pin-nn^gko, a preparation eaten with betel nut; gambler. pin-nn^g-koaⁿ, dried betel nuts. pin-nn^g-hióh, the siri leaf used for wrapping the betel nut. pin-nn^g-he, the fine lime used for this purpose. hoát pun pin-nn^g, to be required to distribute betel nut as confession of being wrong in a dispute. Sàng pin-nn^g piáⁿ, to present betel nut and cakes, as the bridegroom does at time of betrothal. thó pin-nn^g-piáⁿ to demand, as bridegroom, that the betrothal be broken off.

The problem is that Barclay was definitely familiar with Singaporean Hokkien, so his knowledge of betel culture might come from that. What I wonder is if that expression SIm has mentioned "pàng láu-hióh" 放荖葉 is a calque from Baba Malay. I know the Malay for láu-hióh is "sirih" but I don't know the Malay (Baba or otherwise) for "pàng" so I can't find it in Hock's "Baba Malay Dictionary" because I don't know what the headword would be. Pity I don't have a Penang Hokkien Malay Dictionary.......hold on. I do of sorts！ Ｉt is Mr. Tan's "Loghat Hokkien Pulau Pinang"! Now let's see....letak! No luck with a calque though. Hock has Meminang　under headword "pinang" meaning "to come with a marriage proposal" though!

Here are some quotes from the Léng-gòe-tài-tap 嶺外代答 (note my tone was wrong for 嶺 in the last post I mentioned it) written by Chiu Khú-hui 周去非 around 1180:

自福建下四川與廣東、西路，皆食檳榔者。客至不設茶，惟以檳榔為禮。(Chapter Six)
Chù Hok-kiàn hā Sù-chhoan ú Kóng-tong, -se lō•, kai sít pin-lông chiá. Khek chì put siat chhâ, î í pin-lông ûi lé.

Meaning: "All provinces from Fukien to Szechwan, Kwangtung and Kwangsi chew betel. When guests arrive, [the hosts] offer betel nuts rather than tea for politeness"

唯廣州為甚，不以貧富、長幼、男女，自朝至暮，寧不食飯，唯嗜檳榔。富者以銀為盤置之，貧者以錫為之。
Î kóng-chiu ûi sîm, put í pîn-hù tiâng-iù chù tiau chì bō•, lêng put sít-hoān, î sī pin-lông. Hù chiá í gīn ûi poân tì chi, pîn-chiá í sek ûi chi.

Meaning: "Canton is the most extreme, whether rich or poor, old or young, man or woman, from dawn until dusk [the people] are obsessed with chewing betel than eating meals. Rich people make silver plates to place them in, and the poor make them out of tin"

This last one I've tried to translate into colloquial Penang Hokkien:

"Ka-ná Kn'g-chiu tē-it lī-hài, bô kóng sī hó-giáh ah-bô, lāu ah-sī siau-liân, ta-po a-sī cha-bó•, chêng chá-khí kàu kā àm-mê•, bô su-kah chiáh pūiⁿ, ka-ná giān chiáh pin-nn^g niā. Hó-giáh-lâng iōng gīn chò pi-léng lâi hē• pin-nn^g, bô-lui ê lâng iōng siah ê pi-léng."

Sorry I haven't done the whole entry on them. I thought these would be the most relevant. Somewhere else I have an old record (Tông) about betel offered for marriage customs, but I can't track it down.

[amhoanna]

Thanks, guys. Real interesting. I love that word "meminang"! And pàng láuhio̍h. From the pinln̂g-punln̂g split it seems that there was once (or still is) a "penln̂g" (high central unrounded i) pronunciation. Clearly there;s some tie to Malay "pinang". But ironically "pinln̂g/punln̂g" doesn't seem to be part of the Lâm'iûⁿ Hokkien lexicon. ??

I think in VN it's mostly old women that chew. I've picked up some betel in both Saigon and Hiānkáng (Danang). In Hiānkáng the old lady selling it said I must be real iúhàu, picking up some areca for my mom.

Sorry, no VN input on my laptop. I told the guys I paid to install XP (in TW) to be sure to install every input language in the book. When I picked it up, it only had Trad. Chinese and English. I brought it back and repeated what I said originally. The boss (35-ish) looked at me with utter disgust and contempt for needing any language besides Trad. Chinese and English and said he didn't know anything about all that, and gave me my money back.

In TW, guys of any age will chew, but only women over a certain age will, and then only out in the country.

I bought some areca in Coânciu one night. It came in a box, not a bag. I spat some juice into the sewer and right away a passer-by yelled out, "Tâi'oân lâng! Cin līhāi o͘h, Tâi'oân lâng!"

I was always looking for pinln̂g in L.A. but never found it. Towards the end I heard there were Indian stores that sold it in one part of town, but I never found the actual stores that sold it. Now I would really have liked to get my hands on some khat.

Háinâm seems to have a betel culture roughly similar to TW.

Guys from Hunan always seem to have some preserved pinln̂g on them wherever they go in China. They also dunk it in their liquor. On 和平路 in Chimcùn 深圳 near the Lo Wu crossing to HK, there's a store that advertises 湖南槟榔 台湾槟榔.

I'll have to try that 007 Siangcúcheⁿ!

Betel does give me "cai ron" (a hot heart). That came in handy on my last (motorbike) ride up-island in TW as the wind poured into my face from somewhere in Siberia.

Last, a betel stand yet to be: "三越 D-cup" (saⁿ oa̍t D-cup)

And if I'm not mistaken, more and more betel babes in TW are Vietnamese now. If they don't speak Hoklo, they're almost certainly from abroad.

[Ah-bin]

I was always looking for pinln̂g in L.A. but never found it. Towards the end I heard there were Indian stores that sold it in one part of town, but I never found the actual stores that sold it. Now I would really have liked to get my hands on some khat.

That stuff (the pan masala) is bad news, especially the sweet smelling stuff in sachets. Gave me a headache and a yukky taste in my mouth for a few hours. The fresh quid they make in a leaf isn't bad, but just tastes like a mouthful of dried coconut shavings and didn't give me the betel hit I was after.

I've had some in VN from an elderly Buddhist nun, and in Luang Prabang I saw an Old lady mashing it up down by a house near the river. I had learnt enough Lao to tell her I liked betel nut and to ask if she would sell me one, but she obviously wanted to see me chew it, and gave me it for free!

I heard the most scantily-clad beauties in all of Tâi-oân are in Tâi-lâm City where they have yet to regulate the length of skirts and that the most scantily-clad one in all ofTâi-lâm City is at a place called 小野貓, my friends took me to see, and the girl was wearing a blue bikini with white stars on it. All I could think of was Wonder Woman...