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Commercial Langscape
Commercial Langscape
---Commercial Langscape is about the languages used for commercial activities in Sham Shui Po
Shum Shui Po had been developed for many years. Nowadays, it has already become an inner urban area. What are our impressions about the district? There are plenty of old, shabby buildings and a famous trading spot for trading electronic products. This time “Kururu” went to Shum Shui Po in order to find out another side of Shum Shui Po.
Firstly, we thought that the languages used for commercial avtivities are mostly Cantonese, Mandarin and then English. Do you expect any other languages used in the commercial activities in Hong Kong? Indeed, we really could hear other languages when we passed through some shops in the district.
Have you ever eaten “paratha” before? Paratha is an Indian pie. it can be sugary or salty by putting different food on the pie. This special food can be found in “Kashmir Curry House”.
The owner and his friends came from the Middle East. When we tried to communicate with the owner in English, it was amazing that he used Cantonese talk to us. However, the owner was quite busy with his shop, hence one of his friends Don talked with us instead.
Don is a youngster, just like us, he answered our questions enthusiastically. “We are Afghanistani.” Don introduced himself with two languages (Afghan and English). He also used Cantonese, even motions to describe some features of his country.
For instance, he told us how they dressed and how to keep beard. Don said that they could speak various languages. Besides Afghan, English and Cantonese, they also can speak Arabic. At that time, he taught Din Chung how to speak Afghan and Arabic immediately! He was teaching Dinchung(one of the members of Kururu)Arabic and Afghan while he was joking with his friends. We really felt relaxed while having conservation with him.
No! We instantly changed our minds when we saw other two shops’ banners. The first one was a Japanese cuisine restaurant.
It was the first shop we found that it used another language for its banner. “Japanese!” we yelled. We yelled just like discovered the thing that was not supposed to be here. Actually, we saw this banner when collating our stuff. It was so lucky that we discovered this banner by opportunity. We also had lunch in another Japanese cuisine restaurant. Unluckily, we forgot to record the sounds when we were having lunch there. However, we found that although most waitresses in these Japanese cuisine restaurants were locals, we could hear that they used Japanese to welcome customers. !
Another is a Thailand stall called “noi & nai”. The shop banner included three languages: Chinese, Thai and English. Although we thought the owner is a local, the shop’s decoration and the Thai words just brought a Thai-like feeling to us.
We had visited four shops so far and each of them used its own language to represent itself. The “Kashmir Curry House” owner and his friends come from Afghanistan and speak their own language. “noi & nai” and one of the Japanese cuisine restaurants we have visited used their characters. Certainly we could not just focus on finding some languages which are uncommon in Hong Kong society. Let us also introduced the shops that used Chinese-a language that most of Hong Konger familiar with!
Absolutely, we could not leave Chinese in introducing the languages used in Shum Shui Po’s commercial activities! When we kept strolling in the district, we found out a special feature which probably only occurs in old district. We stood at the beginning of a street, and looked at the end of it. We noticed that plenty of suspending brands stretched out from their shops’ wall. We could see many Chinese characters on the brands. This was a unique scene in old district. By seeing these brands we could probably know how many shops are there in the street, what their name were and what they sold. One of them was quite special that perhaps only Chinese can understand it. It is not too difficult to guess, right? It is the mortgage shop. The feature of Chinese pawnshop’s brand only includes two groups of word. One is the name of the shop, another is the Chinese word “押” , which means pledge. Lots of people may have no idea with this if they do not know the meaning of this Chinese word.
Regarding the languages for commercial activities in Shum Shui Po, we have several opinions about them. We fell amazd that we can discover different languages are used to conduct commercial activities here. Chinese is not the only language used in the commercial activities of this district. Moreover, some minorities live here and also certain shops want to stand out their cultures and products by using their own languages and unique styles. Sham Shui Po is really an amazing district.
---Commercial Langscape is about the languages used for commercial activities in Sham Shui Po
Shum Shui Po had been developed for many years. Nowadays, it has already become an inner urban area. What are our impressions about the district? There are plenty of old, shabby buildings and a famous trading spot for trading electronic products. This time “Kururu” went to Shum Shui Po in order to find out another side of Shum Shui Po. What is another side of Shum Shui Po? Did we find many skyscrapers and lager shopping malls here? No, we could not find them. What a different Shum Shui Po “Kururu” have found out and seen is… Let us explore the unusual Shum Shui Po!
Firstly, we thought that the languages used for commercial avtivities are mostly Cantonese, Mandarin and then English. Do you expect any other languages used in the commercial activities in Hong Kong? Indeed, we really could hear other languages when we passed through some shops in the district.
Have you ever eaten “paratha” before? Paratha is an Indian pie. it can be sugary or salty by putting different food on the pie. This special food can be found in “Kashmir Curry House”.
The owner and his friends came from the Middle East. When we tried to communicate with the owner in English, it was amazing that he used Cantonese talk to us. However, the owner was quite busy with his shop, hence one of his friends Don talked with us instead.Don is a youngster, just like us, he answered our questions enthusiastically. “We are Afghanistani.” Don introduced himself with two languages (Afghan and English). He also used Cantonese, even motions to describe some features of his country.
For instance, he told us how they dressed and how to keep beard. Don said that they could speak various languages. Besides Afghan, English and Cantonese, they also can speak Arabic. At that time, he taught Din Chung how to speak Afghan and Arabic immediately! He was teaching Dinchung(one of the members of Kururu)Arabic and Afghan while he was joking with his friends. We really felt relaxed while having conservation with him. After talking with Don and his friends, we thought that they were very flexible in communicating with others. They knew a number of languages and chose the most suitable one to communicate with different people. For instance, they communicated with foreign customers in English, and they were willing to speak Cantonese if locals talked to them. They used Afghan or Arabic while having conversations among themselves and doing their own business. However, it was so strange that the banner of their shop was only presented in both Chinese and English. So, did this mean that all the banners of shops in Shamshuipo are presenting just these two languages as most of banners we saw in Hong Kong were presented in these two languages?
No! We instantly changed our minds when we saw other two shops’ banners. The first one was a Japanese cuisine restaurant.
It was the first shop we found that it used another language for its banner. “Japanese!” we yelled. We yelled just like discovered the thing that was not supposed to be here. Actually, we saw this banner when collating our stuff. It was so lucky that we discovered this banner by opportunity. We also had lunch in another Japanese cuisine restaurant. Unluckily, we forgot to record the sounds when we were having lunch there. However, we found that although most waitresses in these Japanese cuisine restaurants were locals, we could hear that they used Japanese to welcome customers. !
Another is a Thailand stall called “noi & nai”. The shop banner included three languages: Chinese, Thai and English. Although we thought the owner is a local, the shop’s decoration and the Thai words just brought a Thai-like feeling to us.
We had visited four shops so far and each of them used its own language to represent itself. The “Kashmir Curry House” owner and his friends come from Afghanistan and speak their own language. “noi & nai” and one of the Japanese cuisine restaurants we have visited used their characters. Certainly we could not just focus on finding some languages which are uncommon in Hong Kong society. Let us also introduced the shops that used Chinese-a language that most of Hong Konger familiar with!
Absolutely, we could not leave Chinese in introducing the languages used in Shum Shui Po’s commercial activities! When we kept strolling in the district, we found out a special feature which probably only occurs in old district. We stood at the beginning of a street, and looked at the end of it. We noticed that plenty of suspending brands stretched out from their shops’ wall. We could see many Chinese characters on the brands. This was a unique scene in old district. By seeing these brands we could probably know how many shops are there in the street, what their name were and what they sold. One of them was quite special that perhaps only Chinese can understand it. It is not too difficult to guess, right? It is the mortgage shop. The feature of Chinese pawnshop’s brand only includes two groups of word. One is the name of the shop, another is the Chinese word “押” , which means pledge. Lots of people may have no idea with this if they do not know the meaning of this Chinese word.Regarding the languages for commercial activities in Shum Shui Po, we have several opinions about them. We fell amazd that we can discover different languages are used to conduct commercial activities here. Chinese is not the only language used in the commercial activities of this district. Moreover, some minorities live here and also certain shops want to stand out their cultures and products by using their own languages and unique styles. Sham Shui Po is really an amazing district.
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