The Big Hotel
So Ma Lik is dead. He's been sick with cancer for some years, so it didn't come as a surprise to anyone. No surprise, either, that encomiums to the "Strong Horse" (馬力) are rolling in from the least likely places. Even Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho chimes in today, praising Ma's sense of humor, his dedication and patriotism. It doesn't matter that Ma's "dedication" involved blindly carrying out Beijing's directives for decades, and that his "patriotism" involved working against universal suffrage and an independent HK judiciary. No matter that Albert Ho has put his physical body on the line struggling for pretty much every principle that Ma Lik opposed. However, Mr. Ho is a gracious man, a politician, and a Hong Kong person. In Hong Kong, speaking badly about dead people is something that you just don't do.
In fact, it's even better if you can avoid talking about death at all. I always thought that Americans had the monopoly on death-related phobias and quirkiness, until I came to Hong Kong. I should have paid more attention to my favorite movies--Hong Kong's genre of ghosts and horror films was probably the juciest trove of creepiness in world cinema until the Koreans started getting into the act. Even Cantonese language tips you off that death is no laughing matter. The word for die, sei ( 死 ), is commonly used as a curse or expletive. A Mercedes cuts you off in the lane: Sei la! Die already you shithead! Meanwhile, the actual death event is couched in euphemism, just as in English. I remember an early Cantonese faux pas, in which I told my teachers that one of my fellow students had already left for home. "Martin heui jo la!" I proclaimed, proud of myself for appending the proper (jo) past tense marker to the verb (heui) "To Go".
When my teachers stopped chuckling, they patiently explained that I'd just said Martin had "already died."
Last spring I went to my first Cantonese funeral--a friend's dad had, sadly and unexpectedly, heui jo, and I wanted to pay respects. My friend didn't know the exact address of the funeral parlor, but told me the name and said it was the largest such place in Kowloon, that I'd have no trouble finding it.
I consulted my map and found the "Kowloon Baan Yi Goon" (Kowloon Funeral House) with some difficulty--it was annotated in small Chinese characters, with no English translation. I noticed that it was located blocks and blocks away from the nearest MTR station, so I took the train to the nearest stop, then jumped into a taxi.
"M'goi, Kowloon Baan Yi Goon!" I told the driver. He zoomed off without a word.
About ten minutes later, he suddenly parked on the side of a gloomy four lane road divided by a concrete meridian. "I can't take you into the place," said the driver. "You have to get out here." He pointed across the road to a dark and unmarked building that resembled a factory.
I hesitated--the street was empty, and this didn't look at all like a funeral parlor. But I paid him anyway, and got out and crossed the street. It took me a while to figure out that the main entrance to the funeral parlor was around the back, facing a tiny lane filled with flower vendors and artisans selling the special paper articles that Chinese people burn as offerings to the dead. It took me a little longer to figure out that there was no reason--well, no earthly reason--why the taxi driver couldn't have driven around to this little lane and let me off at the front door.
David laughed when I told him about it afterwards. "You shouldn't have told the driver to go to Kowloon Baan Yi Goon. Better to tell him you are going to Kowloon Daai Jau Dim 大酒店.
The Big Kowloon Hotel.
The hotel where you can be sure that even your enemies will find nice things to say about you.
The irony of Ma Lik is that a few months before he checked into the Big Hotel, he himself violated this basic tenet of Cantonese culture: he spoke badly of the dead. Last May, Ma Lik called a group of journalists together for an informal press conference over tea and snacks. Maybe at the time he knew this would be his last such meeting. How else do you explain his extraordinary outburst? At the meeting he began to rant about the persistance of the June 4th massacre in Hong Kong and global politics. Why did the international press--the Westerners! China haters!-- continue to harp on Tienanmen Square? And the Hong Kong people, how could they possibly be entrusted with the right to vote while they still believed that Chinese tanks crushed student demonstrators like human meat buns? Such a thing couldn't have happened. Why didn't they try to squash a pig with a tank to see if it were possible?!
Denial, as we know, is the preferred tactic of demogogues and dictators, murderers, torturers and hate criminals all over the world, from Darfur to Austria to Washington D.C. But it is an especially loathsome act in a culture that believes that when you deny the dead, you deny their spirits peace and rest. Every year, the mothers of the students killed in Tienanmen Square petition the Chinese government to acknowledge the deaths--for without acknowledgment there can be no funerals, no ceremonies, no remembrances, no mourning. Every year, the government rejects their pleas.
Ma Lik now lives in the Big Hotel; no one will say bad things about him. But every eulogy for him, now and forever, will contain a mention of his poisonous comments. And his words of denial will dog his memory like the restless ghosts in Tienanmen Square.
In fact, it's even better if you can avoid talking about death at all. I always thought that Americans had the monopoly on death-related phobias and quirkiness, until I came to Hong Kong. I should have paid more attention to my favorite movies--Hong Kong's genre of ghosts and horror films was probably the juciest trove of creepiness in world cinema until the Koreans started getting into the act. Even Cantonese language tips you off that death is no laughing matter. The word for die, sei ( 死 ), is commonly used as a curse or expletive. A Mercedes cuts you off in the lane: Sei la! Die already you shithead! Meanwhile, the actual death event is couched in euphemism, just as in English. I remember an early Cantonese faux pas, in which I told my teachers that one of my fellow students had already left for home. "Martin heui jo la!" I proclaimed, proud of myself for appending the proper (jo) past tense marker to the verb (heui) "To Go".
When my teachers stopped chuckling, they patiently explained that I'd just said Martin had "already died."
Last spring I went to my first Cantonese funeral--a friend's dad had, sadly and unexpectedly, heui jo, and I wanted to pay respects. My friend didn't know the exact address of the funeral parlor, but told me the name and said it was the largest such place in Kowloon, that I'd have no trouble finding it.
I consulted my map and found the "Kowloon Baan Yi Goon" (Kowloon Funeral House) with some difficulty--it was annotated in small Chinese characters, with no English translation. I noticed that it was located blocks and blocks away from the nearest MTR station, so I took the train to the nearest stop, then jumped into a taxi.
"M'goi, Kowloon Baan Yi Goon!" I told the driver. He zoomed off without a word.
About ten minutes later, he suddenly parked on the side of a gloomy four lane road divided by a concrete meridian. "I can't take you into the place," said the driver. "You have to get out here." He pointed across the road to a dark and unmarked building that resembled a factory.
I hesitated--the street was empty, and this didn't look at all like a funeral parlor. But I paid him anyway, and got out and crossed the street. It took me a while to figure out that the main entrance to the funeral parlor was around the back, facing a tiny lane filled with flower vendors and artisans selling the special paper articles that Chinese people burn as offerings to the dead. It took me a little longer to figure out that there was no reason--well, no earthly reason--why the taxi driver couldn't have driven around to this little lane and let me off at the front door.
David laughed when I told him about it afterwards. "You shouldn't have told the driver to go to Kowloon Baan Yi Goon. Better to tell him you are going to Kowloon Daai Jau Dim 大酒店.
The Big Kowloon Hotel.
The hotel where you can be sure that even your enemies will find nice things to say about you.
The irony of Ma Lik is that a few months before he checked into the Big Hotel, he himself violated this basic tenet of Cantonese culture: he spoke badly of the dead. Last May, Ma Lik called a group of journalists together for an informal press conference over tea and snacks. Maybe at the time he knew this would be his last such meeting. How else do you explain his extraordinary outburst? At the meeting he began to rant about the persistance of the June 4th massacre in Hong Kong and global politics. Why did the international press--the Westerners! China haters!-- continue to harp on Tienanmen Square? And the Hong Kong people, how could they possibly be entrusted with the right to vote while they still believed that Chinese tanks crushed student demonstrators like human meat buns? Such a thing couldn't have happened. Why didn't they try to squash a pig with a tank to see if it were possible?!
Denial, as we know, is the preferred tactic of demogogues and dictators, murderers, torturers and hate criminals all over the world, from Darfur to Austria to Washington D.C. But it is an especially loathsome act in a culture that believes that when you deny the dead, you deny their spirits peace and rest. Every year, the mothers of the students killed in Tienanmen Square petition the Chinese government to acknowledge the deaths--for without acknowledgment there can be no funerals, no ceremonies, no remembrances, no mourning. Every year, the government rejects their pleas.
Ma Lik now lives in the Big Hotel; no one will say bad things about him. But every eulogy for him, now and forever, will contain a mention of his poisonous comments. And his words of denial will dog his memory like the restless ghosts in Tienanmen Square.
Isn't the Hungry Ghost Festival around the corner? Your article brought back many memories about growing up with my ultra-superstitious grandmother in Malaysia. During the Festival, massive stages are constructed in Chinese neighborhoods and all the old-timers show up nightly for the opera shows. The first two rows are always left empty as they are reserved for the spirits. My first time at one of these operas was when I was about 8. No one told me that I must not sit in the first two rows so I promptly plonked myself down. Before I knew it, my Poh-poh hauled me off while muttering "yau gwai mo gwai, sai lo kor mm sek sai gai" (To the spirits: Please don't mind, children don't know any better), while engaging in a praying/incense lighting frenzy for the rest of the night.
I also once made the mistake of giving a friend of mine a watch for her birthday. Not good. To give a watch/clock translates as "Soong choong" - to accord funeral rites/to participate in the burial process.
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What a lovely memory. Thanks for writing about it here. Hungry Ghost festival has passed already. This week Wednesday was the first day of Autumn in the Chinese calendar.
I'm trying to translate literally what your grandma said to you from the way you transcribed it, and I come up with: "If there are ghosts, or no ghosts here: Children don't understand the world."
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Yes, a literal translation would be: "If you mind, don't mind, children don't know the world". I used "gwai" - blame/mind - as in "mo gwai ngo" (don't blame/mind me) versus "kwai" (ghost).
I used to spend hours folding colored paper and choosing paper houses/cars/cellphones/electronics with my grandmother that were to be burned on the last day of the Festival. During that month, I was absolutely forbidden to to a few things:
1) Stay out late
2) Step on burnt offerings (in case a spirit will follow me and then I will "kwai seung sun" - be possessed)
3) Urinate in public - I have never ever done this. Even public restrooms mortify me.
I haven't lived in Malaysian for over a decade but I find that I miss my grandmother's quirky ways. I fasted last week for Kuan Yin's birthday. It made me feel close to granny somehow.
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I can't think of any better way to express the way that traditions--even the "quirky" ones--connect us to those we love.
Thanks for sharing this memory.
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Sorry - my transliterations are spotty. Gwai/kwai - can mean anything from blame or mind, obedient, turtle, ghost, or naughty depending on intonation.
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I know--I was guessing in the dark here, but should have thought of the other meaning!
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The meaning of Smithie’s grandma's words (yau(有) gwai(怪) mo(莫) gwai(怪), sai(細) lo(路) kor(哥) mm(唔) sek(識) sai(世) gai(界)。) is :
(Please) don’t blame (him);
(he’s just a) child and (he) doesn’t know (the ways of) the world.
To help everyone understand the Chinese structure, a word-for-word translation is given below:
有
(If you) have (got anything)
怪 莫 怪
to blame (someone,) do not blame
細 路 哥 唔 識
(him). Children do not know
世 界
(the ways of) the world.
In fact, there is a subtle difference between “gwAI (ghost鬼)” and “gwai (blame(怪)) in the dipthong /ai/ ( note: 怪 is spoken language while責怪 is more common in writing). When you pronounce the character “gwAI (ghost鬼)”, the dipthong /ai/ is diacritically marked as well. Here, you should first imitate the Australians when they say “A”, “make” and “day” etc. in order to get the sound of /ai/ in “gwai (ghost鬼) correct”.
As for things to do with Ma Lik, I would like to recommend you to view the following footages on Youtube:
1. 始終有你 - Just Because You Are Here (with English lyrics)
This is the praise-singing version of the government to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. (Views: 13,595)
2. 始終有你
This is the Chinese version of 1 (Views: 129,372)
3. Folk Guy's Always with you
This is an adapted version of 1 in a satirically facetious way out of the collaborative efforts of the Hong Kong People. (Views: 13,862)
4. 福佳始終有你
This is the Chinese version of 3 out of the collaborative efforts of the Hong Kong People. (Views: 749,525)
P.S. I suppose you should have viewed them as you’ve got the two recent entries in your blog, in particular, “Hong Kong is always with you”. There’s yet another song in store(“We are ready”) to mark the event of the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing. It’s composed by 金陪達, the very same Hong Kong composer of “Just Because You Are Here”. The Hong Kong Apple Daily said that there is an implication in the song that in addition for the Hong Kong people to be ready for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, they are also ready for universal suffrage.
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the name of the composer is 金培達 (pronunciation of 陪 is same with 培, Pui) :D
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lol, you know the Chinese calendar better than me, Mr. gwailo. That kinda puts me to shame, being a Chinese I tend to pay more attention to the western world, and I don't care about Chinese customs/rituals anymore. I think that's the way it goes, one is more curious about things one doesn't know well. By the way, are you a friend of Long Hair's? Lol.
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Being away for 5 years, there're so many traditions, like the Hungry Ghosts Festival, that I almost forgot. In the little suburbia that I'm living in, it's not easy to observe many of the Chinese celebrations that I so love...
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Correct me if I am wrong.
I think the use of "Big Hotel" to mean "Baan Yi Goon"(殯儀館) started in the 90's when a big hotel, Harbour Plaza North Point (北角海逸酒店) was actually built near the Hong Kong Funeral Home (香港殯儀館) in North Point (check it out at http://www.centamap.com/gc/home.aspx). Instead, I heard people call a funeral home "Big Restaurant"(大餐廳)in the 80's -- people in the funeral business use such terms as 全餐(a full course meal), 套餐 (a set lunch/dinner) and 散餐(any combination of dishes on the menu)to mean various packages of funeral services they provide,covering e.g. coffins of different types, layout of the funerl parlour, taoist rites and rituals to pacify the soul to make for reincarnation (打齋daa dzai) etc.
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I love the use of food metaphor to discuss the "dishes" on the death menu! I wonder if they also have laai tong and faai chaan.
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hey Daisann, 好耐無見! i think you've forgotten me :D 嘻嘻.. i m one of the eager high school girls who broke your reverie on 驚蟄日(2007/3/6) :D
i sent you emails before (for telling you that i wanted to leave you comments but i could not) but sadly you could open and read them, (i gave up thereafter, haha).
then my browser was totally dysfunctional until i found a way to fix it.
so here's the good news: 竟然得o左! we unexpectedly got the second place of the competition which has not yet been officially proclaimed, but we got the notification email. just want to share the joy with you and again, Many Thanks : D
most likely there will be a 短期展覽/攤位 about the whole thing in 香港歷史博物館, starting from 九月下旬. if you're free, just go there :D
it is believed that the 展覽 would include 地道 things such as 潮州打冷, 茶餐廳, 大牌檔, 太平清醮, 龍舟, 打小人, 涼茶 boards or even models made by junior and senior highschool students.
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What great news! Thanks for sharing, and congratulations to the high school students for the success of their folklore project documenting the " Da Siu Yan" practice in Hong Kong. I'll try to come to see your exhibit when I get back to HK.
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