When in Penang, Hokien is useful to know

Jeff Ooi, one of DAP's star debutants has already began to use it in his Screenshots:

FEBRUARY 13, 2008
Secret recipe
"Now that the Parliament is dissolved and general election is on, folks in Penang are prescribing a strict menu that I have to adhere to.
No sushi. No eggs. Have more coconut stuff.
To Penang Hokkien, sushi (su si) means 'to lose completely'; eggs (jia nui) mean 'zero'.
Have more coconut, 'pao yia' , means 'guaranteed to win'."

I was in a Penang coffee shop on Wednesday when I overheard an Indonesian helper wishing a customer, ‘Kong Xi Huat Chai’ which was a mixed version of Gong Xi Fa Cai (ie. in Mandarin and Hokien). I couldn’t help laughing as I explained to my son it actually sounds like ‘grandfather dies, followed by prosperity'.

These days, boys studying in SK or national schools think in Malay and sometimes, forget their own mother tongue. A boy was told to buy salt and when he approached the shop-keeper, forgot the word ‘yim’ in Cantonese and asked ‘lei yau harm mou?’ which loosely translates to ‘do you have salty?’ which in Cantonese can also mean ‘do you feel sexy or have sexy thoughts?’ The woman was shocked at the question asked and the boy volunteered a Malay word ‘garam’ which means ‘salt’ and was well understood.

This morning, I saw a van with the name of the entrepreneur, Ng Kum Fatt and I thought how it sounds like ‘afraid to prosper’! He parked his van and sat with the coffeeshop proprietor at the next table. How could I tell him how I felt about his name?