Our Mother Tongue (Taishan = Sze Yap Dialect)

Our roots is alot to do with our spoken tongue (language) I grew up like most Gee's displaced from chinese language in Darwin where speaking and learning aboriginal swear words were more likely.

However I was proud of the words I did know:

Jo Sun - Good Morning
Joi Gin - Goodbye
Yat, Yee, San - 1,2,3 etc
Cha Sui Bao - and many other food words
Pong, Che - all words from Mah Jong and learning by watching mum and others play for hours at at time.

Saying 'Ngoh m sik gong' 'sik tang' - I can't speak but can understand seemed to make the aunties and older folk who spoke no english happy.

My limited chinese language skills was never a problem until I went to school in Sydney when I encountered ' racism' and being called a 'chink' for the first time. Even at University I sat at the back of the class with my other aussie friends, lebs, greeks etc and remarked on how the chinese were always in the front of the class.

I read with interest the article from Barbara Fong about our roots from China that the Gee Clan came from Taishan. Then I was instantly curious how does the fact that the Gee's spoke a 'bastardised' version of Sze Yap Dialect correlate with Taishan.

As I can speak really bad cantonese myself but learnt Hong Kong Cantonese after I got married then lived in Shanghai and HK so learnt Mandarin later in life I had real trouble understanding David Gee Senior when he broke into his 'Darwin Sze Yap'.

There is a small article below on where the Sze Yap people come from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sze_Yap