Born to be a "Guest"

When I was on exchange, I had problems giving short introduction of me to the locals cos they knew me as one of the students from Singapore. Some more, I was with a Taiwanese girl in most of the classes so she talked to me in Mandarin. So, they think I'm Singaporean. But, after chatting for a while, they realize I didn't go to the army nor did I know anything about high schools here. Then, I had to explain them my nationality. But, the problem didn't stop 'cos I speak Mandarin. Then, I had to tell them my grandparents migrated from China. At the end of the day, I still had to tell that whole story about my identity.

But, I didn't tell them that it was not just me nor my grandparents who have been a minority or a guest in other people's country, but my great grand, grand, grand,... parents have been moving around places all over China. We're just born to be a guest (客家 or Hakka) and proud of being a Hakka. Being a Chinese alone is hard in my country 'cos we, minority, as always discriminated. But, being a Hakka Chinese is also not that easy. Non-Hakka Chinese sometimes say that we are Hakka, not Chinese. Being discriminated for centuries, we know how to adapt the local culture and turn from a "Guest" to be a host. For me, Singapore is my third identity but I hope I can work in Japan. But, I may settle down my life in a more relaxing country after retirement. People asked me, "How about your family?". Well, my grandfather also moved from Southern china, his grandfather also moved from one kingdom in China to another, so did his grandfather. So, why can't I? I'll be proud of being a "guest".

Today, I've been listening to this hip hop song. I love learning different languages. But, I'm very ashamed of not being able to speak my mother tongue. When young, I always laughed at my grandfather who speaks Burmese or even Mandarin in Hakka accent. But, now I regretted for not learning Hakka from him.

公公,這首歌是送給你的! 學客家

The signers look funny lol....

I think Hakka is more similar to Mandarin in terms of pronunciation, compared to Cantonese or Hokkien. For example, 容易 is pronounced as "Yong ii" in Hakka (Rong Yi in Mandarin). 千萬 is Qien Van. Let's learn Hakka!


Actually, it's not that similar lol.... For example, 吃飯 becomes 食飯. It's interesting that the verb of "Eat" is same as Japanese verb 食べる. Another one is the usage of the word "Morning" in certain aspects. 吃早餐 becomes 食朝. Since Hakka grammar is same as Mandarin, the verb and object are in reverse order of Japanese. In Japanese, 朝ご飯を食べる. Both Hakka & Japanese don't use the "吃" & "早".

Click here to learn Hakka properly with Romanized character on Hakka TV