Merepek

I was waiting for the lady to pack my order of noodle soup when a call came in from my cousin. Exchanged a few words with her and quickly ended the call when my order was ready. The stall owner then remarked in Hokkien, "Eh, you're from Penang ah? I'm from Penang too. Air Itam, to be exact. Funny, how we have been speaking to each other in Cantonese."

This was one of the many instances whereby I came across folks from my hometown when we overheard each other speaking the distinct Penang Hokkien dialect. It's nothing unusual really, but whenever we bump into someone who speaks the sing-song type of Penang Hokkien, we kinda feel some kinship and we find ourselves rattling off like long lost friends. For many of us, eventhough we have been in KL for quite a while and have learnt to speak the predominant Cantonese dialect, somehow we do not truly feel at home. Hear someone speak our lingua, and that someone deserves a second glance.

I grew up in a colourful neighbourhood in Penang - a big community of Malay families, a few Indian Muslim households; a sprinkling of Indian Hindu families and quite a sizeable group of Chinese families. It was a non-gated (means no gates one lah) of mostly wooden houses with attap roofs and a few units with zinc-sheet roofs. Most of the Chinese families were of the 'Sin-Ning' dialect which sounds to me somewhat like a cross between Hakka and Cantonese. My family and a couple more were the only Baba/Nyonya households there. Nevertheless, in Penang, the peculiar Hokkien twang rules - quite a few of the Malays and Indians in the our neighbourhood could it speak fluently too.

When I first started working in Penang, I had a few colleagues from KL who could neither speak nor understand a word of Hokkien. So whenever we went out for our meals at the various coffeeshops, it would more often than not turn into an impromptu penanghokkien 101 lesson for dummies. Like, when Francis went to order 'wantan mee chit tiao'. Francis thought he got it right when he switched from Cantonese 'wantan meen yat tip' - to him, 'tiao' is the equivalent of 'tip'. And another time when he tried to order 'see koe tng' (now we call it 'lin chi kang' in KL) and he pointed to one ingredient which he does not want. The stall operator asked in rapidfire hokkien, "Mai phorng tai hai ah?". Francis was horrified that the stall operator cussed at him so loudly. Actually, Francis was asked if he does not want the 'phorng tai hai' which is the name of the black mossy-looking ingredient. But it sounded so awfully vulgar to Francis. After suffering through so many embarassing episodes and endless teasing from his newfound friends, Francis finally managed to pick up the dialect, albeit only a passable version.

In my many years here in KL, I have met people who speak a different type of Hokkien and frankly, often times I just can't quite make out what was being said. And sometimes, I have been told too that they can't understand me as well because I speak like a bullet.

No lah, where got? I speak simple and sweet sing-song Hokkien only mah.