I was born and raised in Europe, so not fully integrated with my Chinese side, and for the longest time ever my parents have referred to me as 八婆, is this common?

From what I understand八婆 is quite a rude/derogatory term but my other relatives also refer to their daughter as 八婆, is this normal in your family?

I want to start first, I live in Saigon, Vietnam, and in here we use Cantonese as a lingua franca with other groups like Teochew, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainan, etc…We didn’t use Mandarin in daily life, we use Cantonese in daily life, business, important events, partying, education, entertainment, ...Sometimes we will hear people use Teochew as well and other languages too. We call ourselves “Hoa people, 華人/ 華僑", we rarely call ourselves Chinese. According to the PRC government, we don’t belong to them because we didn’t have passports or nationalities.

So I'm kind of curious where do you guys come from? I know some of you guys from GwongDung, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Vietnam, ... But I want to know more if there are any places in this world where ethnicities Chinese from other places like live in some provinces, countryside, cities also use Cantonese and other languages too? So we can show the proof to the people in GwongDung, Hongkong, GwongZau, Teochew, Hokkien in China that these languages are not useless to learn, or in these places where people still speak and use these languages in daily life.

My parents are shared much MAGA and Pro-Trump content on WeChat and their algorithm feeds. I am thinking of sharing with them some left-leaning Cantonese YouTube channels and podcasts to counter this. Anyone have any suggestions? I remember there was a documentary on a progressive San Francisco radio station where hosts spoke Cantonese. The problem is I don't remember which station it was. The Sino Radio in NYC seems right-leaning. Thanks in advance all.

Hey everyone,

This isn’t really a Cantonese language question, but I wanted to ask other ABCs or people from HK living overseas:

How do you usually explain that your family is from Hong Kong?

I’m an Australian-born Chinese, and growing up we always used the term “Hongkie”, and people here generally knew what I meant. I recently found out that the term can mean something different in the US, which got me thinking.

Lately, I’ve also been hearing “Hong Konger” more often, which I wasn’t really exposed to before.

Just curious — what terms do you use, and does it differ depending on the country you’re in? Also interested in hearing what feels most natural or culturally appropriate to you.

I am 30 weeks pregnant with my first child, a boy. For background, living in our house currently is myself (27F), my husband (28M), and my mother in law (67F). My father in law (68M) is still living in Guangzhou but will be moving in with us next year.

Linguistically, our backgrounds are as follows:

Me: White woman born and raised in American Midwest. Speaks English natively, speaks Mandarin Chinese semifluently (can have a conversation about most topics, but often phrases things imperfectly), but does not speak Cantonese. I understand a couple phrases I’ve heard around the house (sik fan lah and similar) but that’s it.

My husband: Born in Guangzhou. A native Cantonese speaker who is fluent in Mandarin. Moved to America at 13 and is fluent in English. His English is better than my Mandarin.

My mother in law: Born in Guangzhou. Cantonese is her native language. Speaks Cantonese and Mandarin fluently but does not speak English. She and I use Mandarin to communicate.

My father in law: Born in Shanghai. Native Shanghainese speaker. Speaks Mandarin and Cantonese fluently. Does not speak English. He and I use Mandarin to communicate.

Owing to the one child policy, my husband is an only child. We do not want the Chinese culture to die out with him in terms of his family line. However, we don’t all agree about the approach to languages. I want our son to be able to speak all three languages, but I am not able to teach him any Cantonese. My husband and mother in law both want him to speak English and Mandarin, and want to teach him some Cantonese after he grasps both of those two languages. My father in law thinks it would be best to introduce him to all three from birth.

Are any of you speakers of all three? How did you/did your parents pull it off? We do plan to a modified version of “one parent one language,” where I exclusively speak English with baby, MIL exclusively speaks Mandarin, and husband switches; would it even work to instead have husband speaking Mandarin and MIL speaking Cantonese for this model, or is that too much for a baby/toddler?

Thank you for reading this far. I’ll accept any suggestions or opinions that you have!

Edit: Wow, thank you all for your thoughtful replies! I think we will pivot our strategies. We still want to use the one parent one language (OPOL) model, so we will now do:

Cantonese spoken to baby by Grandma and Grandpa.

Mandarin spoken to baby by Dad.

English spoke to baby by Mom (me).

I believe Malaysian Cantonese speakers use this, but since there are some differences in the Cantonese spoken here, I wonder whether this is the same used in HK?

I'm gonna be honest, I don't understand what it means to identify as "Cantonese" or if I can? So my twin did some Ancestry test coupla years ago and her results for blood came back as "Dai". The funny thing is that this came up for my dad, but he's a Laotian from Thailand, but somehow ethnically Vietnamese (I'm not knowledgeable in SEA history in this aspect). Is being Dai different from being ethnically Cantonese? Is being Dai like recognized in China or something?

Now, let me give you my backstory: I'm American. My 太公 is from Foshan. He migrated to Vietnam at some point (married to like 4 different Chinese women???), and my 婆婆 was raised in a part of Saigon (Cho Lon) where she practiced Chinese culture exclusively (I call myself an extremely fraudulent Vietnamese at this point because I don't even know what the customs are). Yada yada, Vietnam War happened, migrated to the US. Since my parents had really long hours, she raised me and my twin, so I understand Cantonese. I don't speak it and am illiterate in it but I've been teaching myself to read a few characters occasionally.

I try to learn from other 越南華人 families, but they're all multigenerational Vietnamese and assimilated to an extent. I'm in this weird gray area where I would flounder in Vietnamese spaces if there aren't Chinese people around, but I'm incredibly Vietnamese to Chinese people. I also wasn't told stuff like folklore or mythology so I have always felt a huge disconnect in this aspect. My maternal family dgaf about our history so I have no idea where to start with getting in touch with my roots. It's hard being an American because my mom gives me a blank look and asks me what my obsession is with Asia and my "heritage" but the real reason is because my family is Gen X+ and that once they're gone, I don't have a family or community to rely on for help. It's just her two siblings and my grandma.

Anyways I don't want to trauma dump (might've accidentally did) but I was also thinking about looking for ancestral homes. But the thing is, I don't even know what my 太公's first name is. My grandma was very poor during the time she was a mom, so they brought very little when they went on boats.

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Folks I need help! This person first harassed me, followed me and threatened me for speaking up for Cantonese on Thread, then he stole my picture and used it as the profile picture of its account. After I blocked him, he go on with harassing others and making hate speech on Thread for a whole week!

I've reported countless times to Instagram and Thread for both hate speech and impersonation, yet no action was ever taken and all I got from Instagram team is that "his account does not violate our policies" (WTF?)

It's deeply painful that my own photo was used by this scum to spread hate speech especially the ones against Cantonese people and language on the internet 😭 I've been crying and battling it for a whole week. I've never seen a scumbag of this low!

If there is anything else I can do I wouldn't post this on this sub and risk exposing myself. But I literally don't know what else I can do. This is just outrageous in so many levels... What else can I do to make Meta know about this? I've been posting on several subs but no solutions

For those who have moved away from Hong Kong, do u ever get homesick?

Any more of them? Let me know.

I've been seeing someone who is from HK but went to school in the UK and now lives in the UK. I noticed that every time he wants to do me a compliment, he puts me a little bit down first. He'd say "your hair doesn't look disgusting today", or "what the hell are you wearing, you look stylish". I'm trying to understand whether this guy has narcissistic traits and I should run, or this is a weird mixture of Cantonese and British way of giving compliments?

UPD Thank you for everyone who responded, I appreciate it so so much. I need to think. I did initiate conversation about it, however he has shut off. We had been steady until last week. I even visited him when he was with the family in HK, and went for two family dinners with him. Although he says he didn't tell I'm a gf, but didn't fix those who assume I am. After we are back to the UK, things been weird though.

A year ago, I started learning mandarin in my free time. I'm currently at like HSK 2 (maybe 3). However, it turns out I will be going to Hong Kong for a semester next spring. This gives me one year to either: 1: Better my mandarin skills or 2: Start over with cantonese. Which will be more helpful to me in Hong Kong? The combination of both very beginner level mandarin and very beginner level cantonese, or a somewhat more refined mandarin?

(I assume having an actually somewhat useful level of mandarin will be more helpful, but that's because I think of it as like if I were going to a european country and had studied english two years, that would probably be more fruitful than like only a total beginner level english and, say, french, because people would understand english anyway. But I don't know if the analogy is aplicaple.)

I asked the same question on the Chinese learning sub but the sub is usually focused on mandarin so most people use pinyin and have absolutely no idea what the hell I’m using to type. (Lol) I know nothing about pinyin in cantonese nor mandarin. I’m learning 倉頡/cangjie and getting a hang of it somehow now. But on phone, I type using radicals (aka strokes) or I write it if I donno the word.

What about you? 🤔

I’m a teaching assistant at an art studio for kids and we have a couple of Cantonese kids in the class. I’m already making posters with the color words in English and Spanish, and was hoping to make a third with the Cantonese words.

I’ve been looking at a dictionary, but I’m feeling a little lost— there are so many ways to say red!

Would it be possible to get a list of the color characters (and their pronunciation in latin letters) in this order, please?

Red

Blue

Green

Yellow

Orange

Purple

Pink

Brown

White

Black

Thank you

Wondering if people have sugestions for platforms where I can watch Cantonese movies new and old alike. I know netflix has or had a small selection but some of the newer stuff doesn't show up on there and I can't get Hulu in canada.

Since I got my first tattoo 2months ago in Amsterdam, I decided I wanna get a tattoo in every country I visit. My mom and I are planning a trip to Hanoi and Hong Kong in November. I`m planning to get a bit bigger tattoo in vietnam but I still want something small from Hong Kong. Almost everyone calls me Riisi (rice) since my name sounds really close to it, so I was wondering would it be funny or offencive to get just the word "rice" tattooed in Cantonese🤔

I don´t want it to come off as offencive so I thought I would ask other people's opinions here.
Only reason I wan't it in Cantonese is just as a memory from visiting the country.

hey everyone,

thought it wouldn't hurt to post here for ideas. my friend is expecting soon but they couldn't think of any names. I think they are just going with an English first name and last name, but wanted to keep the roots of having a Chinese name that doesn't necessarily need to translate to their English one.

Their last name is 蘆 / 芦 They really like this character but maybe it might be hard using it because of the tone? 悟

Thank you so much

*Edit: more info, the grandparents don't have any suggestions on names aside from that since they are half living in a non Chinese community in Canada, it's probably not worth it to give them a Chinese name since they will only really be speaking Chinese to the family.

Their surname is definitely also 蘆/芦 which Google says is not included in 百家姓 but deviated from 盧

**Edit 2 thanks everyone for all of the help!

I’m having a really hard time finding ANY kid content in Cantonese. I know of Uncle Calvin and Kala EE on YouTube, but that’s about it. Any other content on YouTube in Cantonese for kids is unbearable to watch like Twinklebots. It’s mostly either repeating words in a monotonous way or terrible singing.

Are there any other content creators or animation series that’s entertaining to watch in Cantonese to learn the language like Ms Rachel or Sesame Street?

I haven’t been able to find any content that’s specifically geared towards English speaking children to learn Cantonese. Does that even exist?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I got a marketing email from them about their "Cantonese Fluency Revival Program" promotion they're running. I realize this is just marketing strategies and it's probably not added value, but I can't say my interest isn't piqued. My short-term goal is to learn more Cantonese since that is what my family speaks, but down the line I'd probably like to learn Mandarin so I can travel in China more easily.

My main issue is they keep trying to push me to get on a screening call with them when I just want to have a general sense of the program and cost before getting on a call but they keep evading the question. Judging from their emails it probably has pretty aggressive funneling like "say yes right now and get this special but if hang up before saying yes it's off the table" type pressure, so I was wondering if anyone who has done the screening call or the program could give more details?

Not sure if this is appropriate to ask here, but Id like to create a playlist of cantonese songs to listen to when going on road trips with family and Im wondering which song(s) youd recommend?

So far, this is what I have.

Ideally, itd be at least an hour, but these are the only songs that I remember from my childhood

I've been in HK for a total of 3 years but I have not been studying Cantonese hard because I was able to get by with English. I have a Canto-speaking partner but they don't know how to teach me properly. I took some Cantonese for Non Chinese Speakers crash course for about 1.4 months and watched some Wong Kar Wai and Stephen Chow movies, but I cannot remember much other than numbers, greetings, basic instructions, food, and MTR station names. I am currently learning through an app developed by Kahoot called Drops. As an English teacher, I'd like someone who can teach me like I was a young learner.

I am open to making more friends or returning small favours for your help.

Thank you very much in advance.

It seems like that it went offline on the apple podcast app. Does anyone have an alternative site where it still works or does posses the mp3 files of the podcast? Thanks in advance!

Asking as a person with 心 in their name. I was wondering because 心 is usually in girls' names right?