"AH AH AH......"

Today's post was inspired by an exchange of comments on Facebook with my young 20-something friend, who was very happy that she was able to speak her native Cantonese well, despite being an American Born Chinese.
I found that really interesting because I, as a Singaporean Chinese and with a father who came from China, cannot speak Cantonese that fluently...just enough to get by a simple conversation and in a somewhat weird accent. I guess that's due to the fact that my father was not one to talk much and he could not speak English well. Whereas I was English-educated and although I could understand Cantonese, I did not really use it much in my daily life. And when the education system decided to phase out dialects and focus on Mandarin more, that made it even less likely for my Cantonese to improve.

 In my very first blog post, I talked about Cantonese drama serials in the 70s, all of which were from Hongkong. There was no Speak Mandarin Campaign in Singapore back then (yet) and dialects were commonly spoken and heard on television and radio.
Period dramas like Sorrows Of The Forbidden City, Book and the Sword, Luk Siu Fung and The Romantic Swordsman were extremely popular, in spite of cheesy stunts, convoluted plotlines and incredulous fight scenes where the Imperial soldiers were totally hapless and always defeated by even just one hero...lol!

Here is a newspaper article from circa 1976:

I'm writing this off-the-cuff so some details remain hazy, especially about storylines and character names but some stick in my memory and refuse to be dislodged.

Sorrows of the Forbidden City starred Liza Wang as a concubine caught in between the Emperor and the Empress Dowager ("wong ah mah"). The Dowager was a most formidable woman who looked and sounded evil. To this day, I remember how much I disliked (or was in awe of!) her. The theme song was beautiful (actually, almost all the theme songs from the Cantonese serials were amazingly and hauntingly memorable). I'm trying to find more on youtube to collect and will post here when I have gathered a decent number. :)

The Book and The Sword, starring Adam Cheng was another serial which kept us hooked and singing the theme song's famous intro of "AH AH AH....AHHHH....AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH" in Adam's inimitable way. (Incidentally, he was one of the most-heard voices on those TV themes, together with the late Roman Tam.) The story of the Red Flower Society's rebellion and the fifteen (I think) Brothers just kept going on and on but there was no way I could stop watching halfway. :)

Here's a youtube clip of Adam and Roman performing some of the best tunes on an awards show in 1992:
NB: Listen out for Adam's "AH AH AH....", which is the last song. :))

Luk Siu Fung, starring Lau Sung Yan was distinctive for his fighting technique of catching the sword blade between his index and middle fingers...come to think of it, he probably should have had some digits amputated somewhere along the way but this was TV....of course nothing like that happened. His nemesis was Sai Moon Chue Suet and of course, the villains and enemies always make up an important part of the story. This one is more hazy in my memory but I definitely followed it closely then.

The non-period dramas were no less enticing and one of the most popular serials was Man In The Net, which was where a young Chow Yuen Fatt made his mark (and made me swoon)....I'll talk about this in a separate post to follow. :)

Anyway, I told my dear ABC friend she is 'moh tuck teng'(the best) and I hope she keeps the language going. My sons know a few phrases as my mother-in-law and hubby speak Cantonese now and then but that's about it. As many Hongkong actors and singers have also 'converted' to Mandarin as a result of the handing-back of HK to China, and to tap the lucrative China market, is Cantonese in danger of dying out eventually? I really hope not.