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Me No Speak Hainanese

December 11, 2011

In case you didn’t know, I went to Hainan earlier this year to conduct a ritual for my late grandparents. I didn’t really want to go, but as the eldest paternal grandson, I was forced to go.

The reason why I didn’t want to go was because I cannot speak Mandarin, let alone Hainanese. Even before I went there I already foresaw I was going to have a difficult time communicating with the locals there.

Since I was unable to escape from the inevitable gloom, I tried to find someone to teach me how to speak Hainanese, which wasn’t easy at all since people who speak Hainanese nowadays are almost like the Bigfoot – you cannot freaking find them in real life.

Luckily for me, I did find one in the end.

My ex-colleague, Jaime, happens to be a half-Hainanese like me and know how to speak the language. She managed to pass me some knowledge before I went to Hainan.

Here’s the Hainanese 101 from her:

She taught me how to say certain Hainanese phrases and words like “How are you?”, “Have you had your meal?”, “Thank you” and so on, basically the common etiquette. You got to have good manners when you’re in Hainan if you want to go home in one piece.

Oh, and I also got her to teach me how to say two key phrases which have served me well in foreign countries in the past – “Where’s the toilet?” and “I don’t speak your language.”

After I memorized the list, I went to Hainan with high confidence and met with my late grandparents’ relatives.

I managed to throw those phrases and words I learned at them accurately and even had brief chats with them. Bet they were impressed by my skill.

But when they spoke at more advanced level and faster speed, I was pretty much a starfish.

Anyway, this is my late grandparents’ house which they used to live in before they moved to Malaysia. And this is where the eldest paternal grandson’s role came in: I had to do the ritual stuffs.

Since I was (and still am) not familiar with the ritual, a friendly neighbor who lives next door helped me during the entire procedure. He was really nice and helpful, but because my grasp on the native language was (and still is) so lousy, I just did according to his gestures.

He gestured to me to pour tea, I poured tea.

He gestured to me to climb onto the cabinet and pray with the joss sticks, I climbed onto the cabinet and prayed with the joss sticks.

He gestured to me to kneel and hit my head on the floor facing the altar, I knelt and hit my head on the floor facing the altar.

I continued to do whatever he said (even copied his praying hands stance) and I did all these without knowing what or why.

Everything was so confusing to me and the next example couldn’t be any less confusing.

Why was I holding a chicken here!? He just passed me the chicken and told me to bow a few times!

I’m gonna spare you of the details of the chicken’s well-being in the end.

Because it wasn’t pretty at all.

And because I had no idea what happened.

The ritual went on for two days and I spent almost 12 hours each day doing stuffs I didn’t have a single clue of. Praying the whole time was already not fun, but to top it off with me not understanding many words they were saying in Hainanese made it even worse.

Just look at my handsome, bored face.

Doesn’t look like I was having tons of fun, right? Yet, I still got to do it just because I had to.

Anyway, despite I couldn’t understand whatever they were saying, I managed to complete the ritual and finally putting my late grandparents’ souls in peace, which was a good thing. I can proudly say I did my duty as the elder paternal grandson.