Why does everything sound like 'shit' in Cantonese?

Well, not everything but that makes for a better subject heading mah.

As I pick up more Cantonese phrases living here, I learn more words and the differentiations with it. I'm sorry - it's a friggin difficult dialect! 8 intonations, and something simple, if you don't get it correct you are probably saying a bad word like 'dick', 'cunt' or 'suck'. SERIOUSLY. Almost anything you say wrong will mean one of the above or worse, a combination of the above.

I take the mini bus home from work daily. Along the way, if you wanna get off, you tell the driver the street name and 'yao lok (wanna get off)'. I don't have to do it coz where I get off is the bus terminus, and it's right outside my apartment building so yay for me. But there is one popular 'stop' which is on 'Oil Street'. For those who know Cantonese, you know that's called 'Yau Gai' - Yau for Oil and Gai for Street. You would also know that 'Gai' if pronounced slightly 'lighter' with less emphasis with the 'a' in the 'gai', would mean 'chicken'. Yau Gai can mean 'soya sauce chicken (you ji in Mandarin)also. I mean, COME ON! Why do the words have to sound so damn alike?

Going back to my point of everything sounding like shit. Shit is 'see' in Canto. When you shit, it's 'orh see'. However, buses are called 'bah see', taxis 'tack see', toast 'tow see'. They all sound like shit! Yes yes I know it's slightly different but the gist is almost the same. 'Gai see' (street market) sounds like Chicken Shit. EVERYTHING SOUNDS LIKE SHIT.

Oh, one more thing - wow this is almost like Canto for Idiots, taught by the biggest Canto idiot of them all - for those who don't know - a woman's private part in Canto is 'Hai'. Yes, it sounds like our greeting in English 'HI!'. They giggle when I say it. I'm like 'it's like the English word 'Hi', what's the biggie?" I still think the Hokkien version for that is so much better - coz it sounds like nothing really, except... the number Seven Hundred in Mandarin.

Mad woman's rambling over! I've been meaning to get this off my chest and suddenly remembered! HEHE!