Passing through and passing by

[amhoanna]

Thanks for the detailed rundown, Niuc. I'm pretty sure the whole thing applies in TW as well. I would've never noticed all that w/o U laying it out piece by piece.

Lots of hillsides around Tâipak 台北 are covered in bông'ápo͘ (CEMETERIES). They're cluttered and chaotic and kind of scared me when I was a kid. OK, probably still even now. For some reason, I never seem to see these kind of "poor folks" cemeteries when I go down-island to middle TW and southern TW. I've also heard that up around the northeast corner of TW, the people (Hoklo) used to put the remains (or just bones?) of their dead in big jars and stick these jars in caves way up in the cliffs. There's lots of cliffs there... Highly recommended for all y'all's next trip to Taiwan: the port city of Kelâng and the shore from east of there on down to the plains of Gîlân, or better yet all the way down to Hoalian. For extra credit, do keep an eye out for Hokkien POJ street signs in the prefecture of Gîlân.

Cool name, Sinsoaⁿ 新山. If I'm not mistaken, Mount Kinabalu in Sabah is Sînsoaⁿ 神山 in Hoklo. I have to say Ciáⁿcúikáng from another thread is the coolest Hoklo place name I've seen in a while. Niuc, I've been forgetting to ask U what U-all call Jakarta in Baganese. Did Jakarta have names referring to coconuts at some point?

[Ah-bin]

I thought 白雲山 specifically referred to Mount Erskine/Vale of Tempe in Penang (there is one of the biggest Chinese cemeteries there)?

I see! I used to hear them talking about it all the time, but I thought it was just a general term!

I that case bōng 墓 is the most common word now, meaning both a single tomb and the plural.

Thióng-soaⁿ 塚山 I learnt from listening to Bhante Dhammavudho, but it must have have commonly used in Penang at one time too, as it appears in that old Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society article on the street names of Penang.

[Mark Yong]

amhoanna wrote:
I have to say Ciáⁿcúikáng from another thread is the coolest Hoklo place name I've seen in a while.

There is a PDF of an old document floating around somewhere, that has a comprehensive list of most of the roads and landmarks in Penang that have Hokkien names (and I am not referring to those that are straight-out transliterations of English/Malay names), many of which survive in common use to this day. Off the top of my head:

Green Lane - 青草巷 chae-chau hang
Rifle Range (Ayer Itam area) - 撲銃埔 phaq-cheng-pO
Temple of the Heavenly Lord (along Railway Road) - 天公壇 thiⁿ-kOng thuaⁿ

It does help that the Penang state government recently rolled out new street signs with the Chinese characters for the Hokkien versions of the street names in inner Georgetown. Hence, I only listed above a sampling of those that are either not street names, or fall outside of the inner city.

There is a place in 大山骹 Bukit Mertajam on the mainland called 風沙菀, which the locals pronounce as hOng-sua-eeⁿ.

[niuc]

I've also heard that up around the northeast corner of TW, the people (Hoklo) used to put the remains (or just bones?) of their dead in big jars and stick these jars in caves way up in the cliffs.

Wow, in the cliffs! Khió-kut-thâu is practised in Bagan too, but the big jars, called hōng-kim (奉金?), are put in a temple. Not sure if those could have been put into caves should there were cliffs around Bagan.

For extra credit, do keep an eye out for Hokkien POJ street signs in the prefecture of Gîlân.

Cool!

Niuc, I've been forgetting to ask U what U-all call Jakarta in Baganese. Did Jakarta have names referring to coconuts at some point?

Jakarta was called 椰城 in Mandarin last time, but not in Bâ-gán-uē; we call it Pa-siâⁿ 吧城 i.e. "Batavia". Some jokingly pronounce Jakarta as diàh-ka-cuàh (catching cockroach). 　

[Ah-bin]

I have the Pdf of the old Street names, if anyone is interested!

[AndrewAndrew]

I have the Pdf of the old Street names, if anyone is interested!

It's all on Wikipedia under "List of streets in George Town, Penang"

The other differences from current Penang pronunciation is koâinn for tall, and kúinn-tang for Cantonese.

[SimL]

Cool word, 白雲山! BTW do people in Penang bury their dead on hillsides like in northern TW?

Hi Ah-bin: I've been looking for the word for "cemetery" for a long time. My parents don't know - I asked them explicitly. They only know the word for "grave" (as I did, it's been discussed here on the Forum) - "bong7".

Hi amhoanna: As with Andrew, I can confirm that indeed they do. My Buddhist/Taoist paternal side (the maternal side is Christian) are mostly buried on such hillsides (the one's who are not have their ashes scattered in the sea, or in urns in temples). I think my father told me that not only is there a preference for hillsides, but if they can look out onto the sea, that's even better. As it happens, most of my family are buried at the Mount Erskine cemetery mentioned by Andrew.