![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
A flash of an old memory
Randomly surfing through local street names and places for both work and pleasure, and I hit up a few walking tours. One of them talks about red lanterns, which is a hoity kind of euphemism for the old, long-gone prostitution areas near Chinatown, but I clicked on it anyway and it listed the sites -
The Street of the Dead, it listed. It made me stop for a little while because no one calls it that - or, at least, I don't remember ever having been introduced to the street in English. I hear it in Cantonese in my head, sae yan gaei, which is far more damning - Dead Man's Street. They left sick people in those shophouses there to die, way back when.*
I don't remember why I remember these things. My country sneak attacks me! Does anyone else's country sneak attack them? ♥
[edit] *AND BECAUSE I AM WHO I AM this story actually comes with a crucial bit of hilarity. The word "street" and "chicken" in Cantonese are so tonally similar to my ears that I can't differentiate the two most of the time. There's meant to be more of a vowel-sound inflection on one of them - "gAI" as opposed to "gaEi" - but I can never get them right, and my parents think it is hilarious. I mean, Dead Man Chicken. DRAMATIQUE!!
The Street of the Dead, it listed. It made me stop for a little while because no one calls it that - or, at least, I don't remember ever having been introduced to the street in English. I hear it in Cantonese in my head, sae yan gaei, which is far more damning - Dead Man's Street. They left sick people in those shophouses there to die, way back when.*
I don't remember why I remember these things. My country sneak attacks me! Does anyone else's country sneak attack them? ♥
[edit] *AND BECAUSE I AM WHO I AM this story actually comes with a crucial bit of hilarity. The word "street" and "chicken" in Cantonese are so tonally similar to my ears that I can't differentiate the two most of the time. There's meant to be more of a vowel-sound inflection on one of them - "gAI" as opposed to "gaEi" - but I can never get them right, and my parents think it is hilarious. I mean, Dead Man Chicken. DRAMATIQUE!!
no subject
no subject
I'm in your farmyards
Laying your eggs
But when they hatch,
ZOMBIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.
no subject
... you should use that as a crack prompt. for, uh, something. xD
also, that sounds like the kind of thing that would confuse me, as a non-speaker of Cantonese.
no subject
CANTONESE OH YOU ARE SO CONFUSING.
no subject
When I was a kid, Dead Man's Street freaked me out a little, because as you put it, they left sick people or people who wanted to die there. I personally feel that memory is a powerful thing and it is conveyed in many ways.
no subject
Chinatown, for all that it's been revamped and stuff, is still one of the most amazing areas down here, to me. I mean, it's just the way it's built, all those old streets and the giant scary out-of-Hong-Kong housing.
no subject
no subject
no subject