On Monday, October 12, 2015 at 11:03:25 PM UTC-10, Ophelia wrote:
> "dsi1" wrote in message
> ...
> > On Monday, October 12, 2015 at 5:49:10 AM UTC-10, Dave Smith wrote:
> >> On 2015-10-12 11:31 AM, Janet wrote:
> >> > In article >, gravesend10
> >> > @verizon.net says...
> >> >>
> >> >> On Sun, 11 Oct 2015 15:27:08 -0400, Dave Smith
> >> >
> >> >>> It was Dong Bei Mama on Geary Blvd in San Francisco. We only had the
> >> >>> two
> >> >>> dishes and some rice. There was a lot of food and we put a big dent
> >> >>> in
> >> >>> it because it was so good.
> >> >>
> >> >> Found their menu... not like any Chinese restaurant I've ever been
> >> >> to... no egg rolls, no chow mein, no spare ribs, no wonton soup, no
> >> >> egg drop soup, no lobster Cantonese, no duck... strange eatery,
> >> >> eerielly strange, I'd have passed.
> >> >
> >> > Cantonese is south China food.
> >> > Dong Bei, as the ad says, is in North east china, 2,000 miles away..
> >> > China shares boundaries with so many wildly different countries and
> >> > climates, its no wonder Chinese regional cuisines are so diverse
> >>
> >> I am guessing that since Hong Kong was an English colony it had more
> >> international interaction and that is why Cantonese cooking spread
> >> across the western world, as authentic as it may or may not have been.
> >> I sort of lost interest in that kind of food. I don't dislike it. I
> >> still eat it occasionally, but there are many other ethnic foods that I
> >> prefer. The kung pao was in small pieces, stir fried and served with a
> >> sauce and rice, but that it where the similarity ends. The lamb was
> >> thin strips of what was probably lamb shoulder, dredged in spices and
> >> corn starch and fried. It was amazing. It raised the bar for me when it
> >> comes to Chinese food.
> >
> > My guess is that it was the foods prepared by the immigrants that came to
> > North America just after the end of the American Civil War. The plantation
> > workers came to Hawaii around the same period and from the same
> > providence: Canton, which is now called Guangdong.
> >
> > The pakes really shook up the local white populace on the mainland who
> > responded against the yellow peril with miscegenation laws and laws
> > against further immigration. Those guys had it tough - not enough females!
> > Over here, the pake men took Hawaiian women as wives and the rest is
> > Hawaiian history.
>
> Do you speak Cantonese, Mr D?
>
> --
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I do not speak Cantonese. The only people here that do are FOB Chinese. I used to go to Japanese school when I was a wee lad and probably learned some of the language but that's all gone now.

The immigrant experience in Hawaii is pretty much the same as in other countries. The first generation typically won't learn the language of their new home. The second generation born in the new land will be bilingual. The third and later generations will probably not know a thing about their mother tongue.

OTOH, the languages as spoken by the old-timers in Hawaii probably wouldn't be understood in the mother countries since it's the language of the poor, uneducated, plantation workers, typically in the dialect of one particular region. That "Japanese" of Hawaii was brought over mostly from Okinawa. It's the coarse, unrefined, language of farmers and laborers. It would be mostly gibberish to the man on the street on Tokyo.

The Chinese here had a closer affiliation with the Hawaiians than the Japanese ever did. My guess is that the Chinese men had to adapt and modify their language to a high degree to be able to communicate with their Hawaiian wives. Of course, everyone on this rock had to be able to communicate on some rudimentary level with everybody else. That's why Hawaiian pidgin English (the linguists would call it creole English) came to be. It's a chop suey mix of the languages of the people that live here. OTOH, these days, most everybody speaks English so pidgin no longer serves a function except to express ties to social groups. My guess is that the future of Hawaii language is going to be standard youth-speak.

Please excuse the long-winded response!