It’s raining here now in a fine steady straight mist. Before it was blowing enthusiastically and the rain was coming down in waves. It’s strange – I guess I’ve never really watched rain against a mountain before. The mountain behind our apartment gives us perspective so that we can really SEE the rain as it falls from very high above us. It’s just not something I’ve ever really seen before.
Even a typhoon 3 doesn’t seem to be much in the way of weather, although it’s certainly wet out there. I have no good excuse to go out. I was going to go “research” designer factory outlet stores in Central today, but that would involve a lot of walking outside so I’ll save that for another time. I could go to Pacific Place
I listened to the lesson on numbers in Cantonese today. The number 3 is saam, I’ve got that much, because that’s our address. I’m trying to learn the numbers to 10. I know 8 also, because 8 is good luck – baat.
Yāt, yih, sāam,
Sāam, yih, yāt
Yāt, yih, sāam, sei, nģh, luhk, chāt…
That’s the thyme kids here use when learning their numbers, to the melody for “this old man…”
Yāt, yim, sāam, sei, nģh, luhk, chāt, baat, gáu, sahp
Of course just writing those words doesn’t convey the associated tones of Cantonese. The accents are supposed to remind me of which tone to use, but that’s too much for me to remember right now. All I can remember is 3 and 8 – saam and baat, and I’m probably not saying them correctly. Maybe I could try to squeeze yat and yim into my brain before the day is over. Then I could count to 3, with good luck thrown in just for fun!
Back to typhoons: Their warning system sounds to me like I should be able to look up on the Peak and see a big red flag with a ‘3’ on it, don’t you think? I did read somewhere (maybe the Hong Kong Observatory website) that until the late 1930’s the typhoon warnings were indicated by the shooting of a large gun in Victoria Harbor
No comments:
Post a Comment