A Funny Thing in Hong Kong Alfred Tsang

Is English the only language with similar sounding words? In Hong Kong, Cantonese is too. I remember a funny thing. Last year, my wife and I went to Hong Kong to visit my parents. We had spent a lot of time to prepare this vacation. We were in Hong Kong for three weeks. Hong Kong is a popular international tourist destination same as San Francisco. There are plenty of famous landmarks including The Peak, Victoria Harbor, Lantau Island features the world’s tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha, along with the Po Lin Monastery, Tai O village on stilts, Ngong Ping 360, and Hong Kong Disneyland. There are also plenty of excellent hotels, nightclubs and wonderful restaurants. Hong Kong has more than 11,000 restaurants, many of them clustered in defined food districts. Enjoying the best Cantonese and regional Chinese food, visitors must try dishes are dim sum and fresh seafood.

When my wife and I arrived in Hong Kong, we lived in a hotel near my parents’ home. ongHOne day, my parents told us that my siblings wanted to eat out with us at a hot pot restaurant. In the restaurant, we ordered many foods to eat and everybody was full. One of my siblings wanted to eat one more piece of squid, so he told a waiter that he ordered squid. But he said double “Luk” of squid. Sound of Cantonese “Luk” meaning “boil”, another similar sounding word is “six”. When the waiter gave us a dish of six squids, my brother asked the waiter. “Why did you give us six squids?” The waited said that he ordered to boil six squids. Everyone stared at the dish of six squids and laughed.

Finally, we finished the six squids and everybody really was very full. I will never forget that day. We learned about that we should speak clearly to everyone, so no more misunderstanding will be happened.