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Category: Things Chinese

Memories of Sago Lane: Part 1: The Sounds of Childhood

Memories of Sago Lane: Part 1: The Sounds of Childhood

In the heart of Chinatown today stand the less exciting remains of Sago Lane, “the Street of Dead People,” or “sei yan kai” in Cantonese. Originally a 250-metre-long street stretching from South Bridge Road to Keong Siak Road, it was cut into two in a massive do-over in the 1970s. Unfortunately, only the duller part of the street, the one leading to South Bridge Road, survived. The life and soul of Sago Lane, near to Keong Saik Road, was completely…

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Four-character wisdom

Four-character wisdom

In my last post, I mentioned in passing some Japanese aphorisms which are worthy of more than a moment’s reflection. Closer to home ground, for people who speak Chinese, we take for granted the abundant formulaic expressions used in the Chinese language. The ancient Chinese are of course masters in pithy sayings which are pregnant with meaning and wisdom. In particular, the four-character idioms, chenyu (成语) are compact embodiments of centuries of human experience available to every Chinese speaker at…

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