Please Call Me "Daughter, Anak Perempuan or Nu Er"

When I started learning to read in Primary Two, I was already very sensitive to words. I always cringed when papa called me his "chow wa" (Hokkien for the word, daughter). I had interpreted "chow wa" to sound like "run away from me". I told papa that if he had to introduce me to others, he must always say that I am his daughter, anak perempuan or nu er (Mandarin for daughter). I loved him so
much that I would never, ever run away from him. Papa laughed, as he understood the logic of my reasoning even though the interpretation of "chow wa" was not quite accurate. In fact, the word "chow wa" is unique only to Penangnites. Here in Singapore, people do not use this word. They say, "Char bor kia" in Hokkien.

I had asked someone, Mrs. Chong En Shin, an elderly member of the church which my brother-in-law was then pastoring in Kuching about the word, "chow wa". Mrs. Chong explained that it could have come from the Malay word "chawan" which means stove. Hence, in the olden days, it was usually the daughter who learnt how to cook. Hence, the word "chow wa". In Penang, we have many Straits Settlements Chinese or nonyas and babas. Hence, many words in our Hokkien dialect have been coined with influence from Bahasa Malaysia.

Language is like music to my ears. This is why I cringe when someone makes jarring grammatical errors in his speech. It is like listening to wrong notes in a melody. At the recent National Achievers' Congress, I heard the Master of Cermonies, Richard, telling the audience a story about Vincent Van Gogh and Picasso.
Not only was his story half accurate, but his sentences were punctuated with so many jarring grammatical errors! Public speaking is not an easy task and I admire Richard's courage to stand on stage, but I really wish he could have taken the trouble to polish up his English grammar and do his research as well.

One of my ex students was surprised when I told the class that language is like music. Since he liked music very much, he decided to listen to the sound of language, and after that he made a marked improvement in both his English and Chinese.