Kuay Teow (translate: flat rice noodle) is ranked as among the most popular food in Malaysia, and it comes with various variety. People can fried it, or make curry chicken soup with kuay teow. No wonder million pounds of kuay teow are served daily.
Speaking of kuay teow, I remember clearly an indicent many years back (around 10 years ago?) that I went out with a friend, Bernard, who can’t speak Mandarin nor Cantonese. He is our very typical banana man that can speak ultra fluent English but can’t even write his name in Chinese. We were close friends and slowly but surely, he asked me to teach him Mandarin and Cantonese.
His roommates were Chinese speaking dudes, so I took up the responsibilities to teach him Cantonese, and there were a lot of funny and memorable incidents. Strangely enough, one of the incidents involved our beloved kuay teow…
I still remember that it was a sunny afternoon, and we went to KL for some shopping and checking out those beautiful women. After spending some time doing nothing, we went across Sungai Wang shopping mall for lunch. There was this famous curry chicken hawker that I visited frequently, so naturally I took him there.
Here is the conversation that took place (in Cantonese, but I take the liberty to translate for you guys who can’t really speak Cantonese) …
Bernard: Hello auntie, may I have a curry chicken mee? (translation: noodle)
Auntie: Sorry my dear. Mee is sold out. (From the way he speaks, the lady knew instantly that he couldn’t speak Cantonese very well)
Bernard: Hmm… in that case, bei guai tiu la (*Correct* translation: can you give me kuay teow instead?)
Everyone around there, including the patrons, bursted into laughters. Even the hawker auntie was laughing her ass out. All I could do was looking at him with my eyes going to pop-out, and then I dutifully did my laughing part.
Bernard: Hmm.. auntie, what’s wrong?
Auntie: Oh nothing (still laughing like mad)… just take a seat first ya? (laughed louder)
The problem is, when he said “Bei guai tiu”, he basically was telling the auntie off, and the direction translation for that phrase is “let the ghost fuck you”. Because he couldn’t speak Cantonese very well, his pronounciation was way off and instead of asking the auntie to give him kuay teow, he asked the auntie to be fucked by a ghost!
I noticed a guy got choke by his own food nearby, and a girl was wiping tears from her eyes. I slowly walked away while laughing, and pretended that I didn’t know him at all…
Years later, Bernard is now residing in Hong Kong, and taking up training as a pilot for Cathay Pacific. Oh, and after years of training, he can speaking ultra fluent Cantonese now.
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