Oskar's Q & zHANgie's A (was partly Re: various infotaining natlang tidbits)

In a message dated 2000/06/16 05:16:15 AM, Oskar wrote:

>Mm. Suspected you were some kind of wa-kiu, since you're on this very much
>English-speaking mailing list. But the issue isn't if you're a Gwongdongyan
>or not, it's if you sik gong gwongdongwa or not, ji-m-ji ngo gong matye?
>
    ::baffled look::  I kinda always get laughes by saying to Cantonese
speakers that I am _Han gwai_...

>Ok, you haven't even told me if you speak Cantonese or not, so perhaps I
>should lay off the Canto-romanizations for a while ;)
>
    I don't speak much of any dialect :(   Parents & grandparents were very
divided over what dialect - if any - I should speak... so I ended up just
speaking English.

>FooChow mum? Do you speak Fujianhua then? Or just Mandarin (I think I've
>seen you answering questions about it, so I'm sure you're fluent)?
    Not fluently, but barely enuff to be polite =} not enuff for anythin'
more than emergencies ={

    My Father thinks my interest in Bahasa Indonesia is a good interest. He
jokingly adds that semi-educated, BI-speaking Iban in Borneo & I would get
along infamously well since I have tattoos & have a definite headhunter glint
in my eyes. (Thanx a bloody lot, Dada)   [Amongst some of my Chinese
neighbors, they have taken to the rather intriguing idea that I am some kind
of throwback to ancient tribal Chinese & that I am some kind of _wu_
<sorcerer, particularly Taoist or proto-Taoist>... even though I do not speak
any dialect. A few neighbors insist I do understand Cantonese, but - like a
latterday Sun Wu K'ung, Trickstergod Monkey - pretend otherwise...]

    zHANg