Fun with names

WEE KEN FATT, screams a sign on one side of the road. SOH KEN WEE seems like a reply across the road. This much quoted joke, gets distorted along the way, but it does not lose its hilarity. Now I wonder if it was actually true or cooked up.

But I know this is true. Years ago, along 3rd mile Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, there used to be a vacant land, which is now a building occupied by Public Bank. It was occupied by a used car company by the name of FU SOON SDN BHD.

Recently, we were in Teluk Intan looking for a particular biscuit shop. While driving about in the town, I saw a shop with SEONG FART. I am sure in Cantonese, it was supposed to mean “always prosper” but somehow it got mispelt or the owner has no choice because there must have been too many SEONG FATT already registered.

If my memory serves me right, a SOON GOH FATT along Jalan Tun Perak, Kuala Lumpur, managed to get a mention in That’s Life in UK, hosted by Esther Rantzen.

Auspicious business signs for restaurants signifying good business, seem to suggest the lack of ideas. TIEN TIEN LAI and YAT YAT TOU means the same (everyday come), though the former is in Mandarin and the latter in Cantonese.

The Chinese favourite, usually one of two or three characters of a business name, FOOK means “good luck” in Cantonese. But if it is used in Yorkshire, England, it sounds obscene!

I realized this, years ago, when my roommate tried to explain the many different dialects of Chinese people to a Yemeni post-graduate student. He was in Leeds long enough. He told him, “For example, I am Hakka, and he, pointing at me, is Fookin." Jamal burst out laughing! If my friend had used "Hokien instead of Fookin", it would not have been so hilarious.

There is a coffeeshop in the town where I live now, with the name, MOK YEW. If FOOK YEW, I bet a tourist from Yorkshire will take a picture to show his friends back home.

By the way, my blog name KOSONG means “empty” in Malay. I am trying to dispel the Chinese superstitution relating to names, by making sure my blog is far from empty. In fact, I hope to open a jam café by that name too!