Mai Hiam, Hor

The Hokkiens were never known for the elegance of their speech or the beauty of their language, but they sure know how to be succinct. I should know — I’m half Hokkien, and a lifetime of eardrum-busting Hokkien relatives at Chinese New Years, weddings and funerals have brought a thorough understanding of that language I understand perfectly but can never speak (being almost the same as the one I speak natively, Teochew, try as I may I cannot undo my peculiar Teochew inflections).

It is said that when a Cantonese speaker curses you, if you didn’t know any Cantonese you would smile politely and accept what you thought were poetic words from the Cantonese language, even if he really cursed you and the ten generations of your family — in addition to spouting unspeakable things about your mother. When a Hokkien person curses. Well, it sounds exactly the same as when he says he’s going to the toilet, or that he’s in love with you.

I’m of the opinion that the Hokkien dialect has some incomparable phrases of wisdom.

“Jiak pah boh sai bang” — a phrase that translates to “eat (until you’re full) no shit to put”, meaning you’re meddling too much in business you shouldn’t bother about, or finding unnecessary things to do.

“sjit za bei za kao peh kao bu” — “seven early eight early cry father cry mother”, meaning what the fuck is all that noise so early in the day? (Also applies if it’s not really seven or eight, I guess you can stretch it to noon or thereabouts)

“kua simi lan jiao?” — “look what blue bird?” (where blue bird means… dick). You’d say this if you were spoiling for a fight and were of the deluded belief that everyone is checking you out. Only applicable if you actually have a blue bird, or one of any colour.

I haven’t spoken (or heard) much Hokkien ever since I left Singapore, but in London a few days ago I managed to eke some practice out of my productive time there. My friend Sue Jan, whose only Hokkien comes from listening to her loud Peranakan relatives shouting at each other, suddenly decided to pretend she could speak it. M., whose first words to me when we started going out were “I can speak Hokkien! Pangsai! My Hokkien is so good don’t you like me!” (I did — because pangsai = to shit), decided to throw in a bunch of new Hokkien words she’d learned from somewhere, like “chin chai” and “orh cheh”, putting her Hokkien on roughly the same level as my Malay.

While walking through Bayswater in search of the famous Four Seasons roast duck (yes, I’m horribly Asian that way.. and duck is hard to come by in the Middle East) a restaurant with a bright blue KIASU signboard on it stood out. That’s roughly equivalent to walking about China and finding… well, there’s no equivalent really, because “kiasu” means “scared of losing”. When I was younger, my brother and I wanted to set up a chain of specialty stores. “Kiaboh” (scared of wife) would be a consultancy service for henpecked husbands, “Kiasu” would be our flagship gambling shop or 4D kiosk, and “kiasi” (scared of dying) would be a one stop shop for pre-funeral services. My parents must have said this was “kialang” (scared off people). To name a restaurant after that was a little strange, and made for an interesting afternoon since the toilet had a huge motif that said Kia Lah Sam (scared of being dirty). This is as bizarre as finding Gaelic everywhere in a random location in Thailand, if you are Irish.

The large board outside called its food “Cuisine of the Straits (of Malacca)” (yes, in brackets), and the menu seemed authentic. Most of the staff appeared Malaysian, which is a good sign. They had things I grew up with, like bak chor mee (I not so secretly obsess about bak chor mee and I can eat it everyday.. and sometimes do), orh luak (fried oyster omelette), char kway teow. Even the drinks seemed so — I think I jumped a little when I saw “kopigow” (thick Malaysian/Singaporean local coffee with lots of condensed milk).

And the food?

If you’re Hokkien like me, deep down inside your soul your food rating system — and there will be one, because you’d be obsessed about it like all good Hokkiens are — really comes down to a simple scale of three.

1: gana sai
2. Mai hiam si beh pai, ai hiam si gana sai
3. sibei hoh

The Hokkiens don’t mince anything that can’t be eaten, so we never mince our words. On either extremes, it’s either #1 gana sai like shit, or #3 sibei hoh so good your father can die. The one in the middle, though, is my favourite. I think it’s beautiful and even slightly philosophical.

“mai hiam si beh pai, ai hiam si kena sai

The closest meaning the English language has for “hiam” is “mind”, which doesn’t even come close. To hiam actually means to mind, or to care, or to bother… when it really means to do all that when you know you should.

Mai hiam si beh pai — if you don’t mind, it’s really not bad… ai hiam si gana sai if you hiam, it is like the shit that it really is.

I am such a good Hokkien that this useless piece of reflection on the Hokkien dialect arose from a bad bowl of bak chor mee (minced pork noodles). Remember how in primary school the bak chor mee seller always sold bad quality noodles with an alkaline taste, never cooked them properly, and worse of all noodle sins, added ketchup to it because they never knew what else a bak chor mee should have? Those versions — which I hated with a passion — might just be better than this 7 pound abomination. Mee pok that was trying to be tagliatelle, tasteless minced meat (the second most important part of a BCM next to the sauce and chilli!), and so much vinegar I couldn’t breathe. Nobody goes to London to eat bak chor mee… but… I was desperate. A key difference in Singaporean and Malaysian food is that no one person, not even a master chef, can ever perfect more than the few (usually just one) dishes he knows. And that while I think our cuisine is one of the most varied and wonderful, more than any other cuisine I wouldn’t eat a certain dish unless I knew they were absolutely the best, the oldest, the longest queue because it descends so quickly into a flavour-less mess. So that might be why any restaurant attempting to be Kiasu and offer all these items without being good at any of them is foolhardy. Second lesson re-learned while reading raving reviews on a board outside the toilet: restaurant reviews are a necessary evil, but can you really trust them when they come to food outside their cultural contexts? One would think food is about “this is good” and “this isn’t”, but beyond that I would argue that food is equally about “this is the way it’s done” too. Like not putting too much vinegar into bakchormee. Like not adding ketchup, EVER, in any bakchormee or dry noodle types.

When I become the dictator of Singapore, my first edict will be to ban the use of ketchup with dry noodles of the fine noodle and meepok class, and my rant was really about that.

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