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Toi Shan Dishes Anyone?

I am Cantonese of Toi Shan origin. We speak a dialect that's similar to Cantonese but it's not really Cantonese. I suppose you could say it is an offshoot of Cantonese, perhaps even a deeply skewed version.

Not many people speak Toi Shan dialect these days. The ones who do speak it are as old as mountains. Most are in their 60s and 70s.

I call it a Dinosaur Dialect as it seems that old to me. The younger Toi Shan generation either do not bother to learn it or find it hard to speak (after all, you can't practice if you have no one to speak it with!). Or maybe it just sounds funny to the ears and Cantonese sounds much better. I've promised myself that if I have kids, I will teach them this language.

I speak Toi Shan because my Dad is Toi Shan. I speak it with him and my second sis. With my youngest sis, I revert to Cantonese. With mum, I speak Cantonese as she's Cantonese through and through.

One of the best memories of being of a small, select dialect group is we get to bitch about others without them knowing it. It's a bit like speaking Foo Chow dialect. The Foo Chows are also talking in a lingo only a fellow Foo Chow can understand. And so it is with Toi Shan.

But a Toi Shan uncle I met in Hong Kong told me this - many Toi Shan are wealthy particularly if they are living overseas (such as USA). They were the first people to go in search of gold!

I should have gone looking for gold in San Francisco, hah!

Anyway, this little post will come in many parts as I am reminiscing about the dishes my Grandma cooked for us. She was Toi Shan and her dishes are particularly appealing now that I am all grown up!

Come back for more...
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Comments

Anonymous said…
I love to hear people speak toi shan. My father spoke only toi shan but he passed away when I was very young. My mother spoke toi shan and spoke Cantonese to her children. I understand toi shan but cannot speak. I wish someone can teach me all over again. I miss hearing it.
6:42 PM
Ann said…
Oh..never heard of Toi Shan! The dishes must be good coz I am cantonese and any branch of cantonese cook well! :)
9:55 AM
Krista Goon said…
Hi Anon: It's a bit difficult to teach - maybe that is why it is a dinosaur language now. Maybe one day I can do via audio haha.

Ann: Toi Shan dishes are a lot saltier. I realized this recently because all the dishes my gramma used to cook for us were very intense in flavours, used a lot of salt, a lot of fermented black beans, or salted eggs, or salted fish. Or they were all rather porky and oily. But all indescribably yummy.
4:54 PM
Wendy said…
I live in the USA. I enjoy sitting in Chinese fast food place in Chinatown and listen to old toi shan speaking the language. Recent immigrants from China and their US born children of toi shan originals also speak them here. I do not have anyone to practice with. I understand but do not speak much. I like the dialect and miss it.
11:49 AM
Wendy said…
One of the dishes I remember from childhood was cooking pomelo rind in brown bean sauce. Peel off the skin and soak it for days to soften it, then braise it in the sauce. It never got soft. Love to have the recipe.
11:49 AM
Krista Goon said…
Hi Wendy

Thanks for your comment. Yeah it's hard to find people who speak Toi Shan these days. That is why I try my best to keep the dialect alive by speaking to my sis and dad. Even my aunts seem to prefer Cantonese over Toi Shan these days. When a dialect dies out, it is so tragic. As for the dish you mentioned, it is the first time I have heard of it. If I can get the recipe, I will share with you. Perhaps it is time for me to ask my grand aunts when I see them during CNY this time around.
12:04 PM
Wendy said…
Hi there, did you talk you anyone during CNY about eating the pomelo rind or any Toi Shan dishes? Another one I can think of is tong yuen, rice dumpling, without any meat filling and cook it with Chinese long green cabbage. This tong yuen is a salty dish, unlike the popular sweet one with red bean fillings. Have you heard or seen it before?
1:28 PM
Anonymous said…
loved this! my grandparents speak what my mother has always pronounced in english as 'toy-san' (she and my father are first gen chinese american). i've always wanted to know more about my culture and where i come from, but it seems the chinese people i surround myself with are all taiwanese, and their reality is involved in everything taiwan and disdain for anything chinese. thanks for sharing this! it was so great to hear about the background of this dialect and why it's so lost upon a lot of the chinese people i'm around these days.
2:04 PM
Krista Goon said…
I got excited because I found a few Toi Shan or Hoi San forums/blogs while surfing the Net recently. I have come to appreciate the unique melody of Toi Shan now that I am older. My sis and I are trying to get my 7 year old nephew to speak it. Children, unless they are immersed in the language, often don't want to verbalize it perhaps due to the 'weirdness' of the tongue in pronouncing the different sounds. You know what, Wendy? I actually tasted the pomela rind dish for the first time when I went to Hong Kong recently. Shall blog about it. Even took a photo of it. It was super tasty!
12:50 AM
Krista Goon said…
For a walk down Hoi San memory lane (or Toi Shan or Toy Shan), here are some links I found on our unique cultural and language heritage:

http://taishanese.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html

http://toisanlives.blogspot.com/

http://www.toisanpride.com/

http://taishan1.blogspot.com/

Hope you all Xin Ning folks enjoy this!
12:53 AM
Krista Goon said…
Oh and one more link:

http://ipracticecanto.wordpress.com
12:57 AM
Anonymous said…
Have some hope. I'm 28 years old, American born Chinese and I still speak Taishan fluently. What kind of recipes are you looking for?
1:27 PM
Krista Goon said…
Hi Anon: Hard to say though. What dishes are you eating currently in America? My grandma used to cook lots of salted chicken (I think it's a poor man's way of keeping food fresh longer by salting them) and dishes with black beans. Toi Shan like to braise their dishes - no? The problem is, Toi Shan and Cantonese are so closely related that it's hard to pinpoint particularly a specific Toi Shan dish.
6:20 PM
Krista Goon said…
Thanks for sharing this helpful video on Toishan dialect.
2:55 PM
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