RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241
A NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES

95

one witness as "two other people, besides myself — and seven coolies" and by a second witness as "seven people — and three GWAEZIRLOO””.

Nor with the extraordinary reluctance to say the other's names right, which turns the easily pronounced BAY JING3 (or BUCK GING) into PEA KING, HAHN CO (or HAWN HOW) into HANG COW, and GWONG JOW3 into CANTON; or, the other way about, transformed Sir Winston Churchill into Mr. YAU, President John F. Kennedy into GUMMY DICK, or President Lyndon B. Johnson into JIMSON® Refusal to communicate is a separate subject, and a very disquieting one.

I would help those who wish to be helped.

For the Western end of my comparisons most of my examples will be from English, because I think my audience will be most familiar with that language; although I shall emphasize to my Chinese friends the need to approach English by way of Greek and Latin, and to my English friends the need to approach modern Chinese by an equally devious route. And for the Eastern end I have confined myself to Cantonese examples, but have somewhat soft-pedalled the elements, very numerous elements, in the syntax and vocabulary of Cantonese which set it apart from other kinds of modern Chinese and make it both scientifically and for practical considerations a separate language, whatever we would like to think for other reasons.

But I have denied myself the pleasure of an exhaustive look at the "classifiers" which would alone give matter for a whole course of lectures. Although "classifiers" or congruence-classes are a feature not only of Chinese but of Thai, Japanese and many other languages, Cantonese with its hundred or more classes ever increasing, too, it would seem occupies a somewhat extreme position and I have therefore referred to this feature in more general terms, to leave room for other matters.

To come back to the two sentences which may have startled you at the opening.

2 A7, a vulgar term for non-Chinese.

3

4 漢口

these, of course, are not SOAS romanizations.

廣州6 st

7+EN

› AE
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m
102

CARL T SMITH

little girls of tender age living amongst strangers and in where to them is a strange country, no denial of succour is possible without outraging our feelings of humanity."

Instructions from Colonial Office to Hong Kong Government

In March 1922 it was announced in the House of Commons by Mr. Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for the Colonies, that the Government of Hong Kong had been instructed by the Colonial Office to consult with both the Prevention Society and the Anti Mui Tsai Society in order to draw up a scheme for abolition.

Already the Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Hong Kong had been in consultation with the Secretaries of the two societies and both groups were in the process of selecting seven of their members to consult with him.

Canton had forged ahead of Hong Kong, for the same issue of the paper which carried Mr. Churchill's remarks reported an item from the Canton Times that the President of the Southern Government had issued a proclamation abolishing the mui tsai system. The Women's Union of Kwangtung were ready to establish an industrial institution to train them.

News of progress toward abolition both in Hong Kong and Canton produced an air of elation at the first annual general meeting of the Anti Mui tsai Society held on March 26, 1922, at the Chinese YMCA. Mr. J. M. (Joseph Mau-lam) Wong, an Anglican and compradore of Messrs A. S. Watson and Co., presided. On the platform were members of the Executive Committee. These included Mrs. Ma Ying-piu (1872-1957), wife of the founder of the Sincere Co., member of St. Stephen's Anglican Church and a founder of the YWCA.

The Society had invited Mr. Hui Chien, the President of the Supreme Court of Canton and a member of the Society, to address the meeting. At the last minute he was unable to attend but sent to represent him two associates from Canton. One of them read the remarks he had intended to give to the meeting. In these he observed that the Southern Government at Canton had taken steps to abolish the system, but it would find it much easier to do so if Hong Kong also moved in this direction.

Since its formation the Society had vigorously promoted its cause both in Hong Kong, China and in Great Britain. It had the active assistance of Commander and Mrs. Hazelwood, who after retirement
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