Lets talk about what it means to be a ngoui tau in North America!



Start with all the basic background information;

When did your family emigrate from China, from where, why, how?? What languages do you speak?

How assimilated is your family? What Chinese traditions did they retain, and what Vietnamese traditions did they pick up?

Who do you relate more with? How did Viets and Chinese recieve you?


Let's get it rolling.



okay, both sides of my grandparents came from Guangdong. My dad's side from Shantou and my mom's side from Meizhou. My dad was born in Vietnam and my mother was born in Cambodia. They left because of that massive epic famine that hit Southern China.

I only speak Vietnamese. I used to speak Teochew when I was younger, but lost it because my dad's family mostly uses Vietnamese.

I don't know what Viet culture they picked up. Besides the Vietnamese language and food, my dad likes American music and movies.

My mom, on the other hand, is still very Chinese but separated from her Hakka family in Australia.


Vietnamese people like me, ABCs and Asian-Americans I'm cool with, mainlanders are a-holes to me.



Socal, your turn.

funny

are we vietnamese allowed to say what we think of you Tàu Chợ Lớn here?

sure


My dad isn't from Cho Lon, but he spent his teenage years there working for my aunt's husband who was a typical Cho Lon Cantonese. That's where he learned Cantonese and Mandarin.

ummm i just asked my grandma and she said they lived in something like "gun tuhhh" which sounds like "close mail" to me. hehehe

I've noticed that the nguoi Tau in Vietnam hate these terms *Ba Tau, Tau, Dai Luc* . They want others to call them nguoi Hoa.

^ cơm Tàu sounds cooler than cơm Hoa

btw I don't think Tàu is an offensive term, it could have been originated from the word "Tần" (don't believe in what Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn said in Paris by Night)

Wow, you are? lol I was born there. lol. but my family is all teochiu. and grandpa came from Guangdong then owned a clothing business in Cho Lon. Then damn Viet Cong took over and he had a heart attack.

Most if not all fam interweaves between Mandarin/Teochiu/Viet while speaking. LMAo.

I thought ngoui tau means "boat people" like they came to Vietnam on boats or something and Viets were like, "what the hell are these people on boats doing coming here??"

(???)



why is that so surprising?? you're a ngoui Tau too. When did you come over here?

you seem more Chinese. i wish my parents were more adamant about teaching me Chinese.

my family was poor in Vietnam so the VC didn't do anything major to us. So I think they left because they didn't want to live with a bunch of commies.

We call them nguoi Tau/ nguoi 3 Tau because they used three boats to migrate to Vietnam.

yep. total chinese. and pretty much left China because grandpa didn't agree with mao. lol.
gotta make yourself have ambition in learning, mom forced it on me a little. not too much.


fam didn't use boat.

Stephen

You are very brave to post this topic.

but he agreed with HCM??

I had a chinese/vietnamese neighbor once....when ever I came over they were really generous and nice...I freeload on food at their house all the time...

The Financial Tower in Saigon (Bitexco Building) looks so good.

I cannot wait until that building is completed.

nope, just dealt with whatever was there eventually.

http://www.bitexcoland.com/

I am at the Bitexco website. It has some nice relaxing classical music. This is so cool.

shouldn't you post this in the saigon skyscraper thread that I started this thread is about ngoui hoa

I am sorry for my digression. I get carried away by the beauty of the building and classical music.

I met a girl once who was 100% Chinese, but she didn't know how to speak any chinese. She only spoke vietnamese (and english of course). Pretty neat, I guess. she was cute too.

No. That explination (of Nguyen Ngoc Ngan) doesn't make any sense.

You see classical Viet historians used the term Tàu to indicate not only Chinese in our country, but also Chinese in China and the whole northern country in general. We have term like "nước Tàu", "đi sứ Tàu", "sứ Tàu sang" etc...

If only average Viet people use that term and to indicate only Chinese in our state, then it would make sense to say Tàu in người Tàu means boat. But here, even educated historians used that term, and it was used to indicate the northern country. We call Chinese people "người Tàu" because they are from "nước Tàu", not because they came here by boats.

and what does Tàu mean? I read from many documents and they say "Tàu" possibly came from the word "Tần" - the country of Tần Thủy Hoàng (Qin Shi Huang).

At that time, Tần Thủy Hoàng conquered many countries and even attempted to conquer Âu Lạc of An Dương Vương (but failed or gave up). As this Tần state grew bigger by absorbing other small states, we called the country in the north that usually came south to invade our land "nước Tần". And after hundreds or thousands of years, the word Tần might have been twisted and became the word Tàu.

When Viet historians used the word Tàu, they wanted to indicate the country in the north that grew out from the Tần state.

In Thiều Chửu dictionary, the author also said "Tàu" people are those that have Huaxia origin; they came from the yellow river, and later expanded south and conquered many states. This definition fits well with the "Tần" state.

The word China in English also came from the word "Qin" (Tần)

Therefore, it makes sense if you say the word "Tàu" came from the word "Tần"...The state of Tàu is the state of Tần (it grew out from the state of Tần). Tàu people are the people of the Tàu state (or the Tần state originally). In general, anyone from the state borders our northern border is called Tàu .

Are ba tau good people? Did the communists kick all ba tau out of the country? How come they are still there in Vietnam? Communists must have taken bribes from wealthy ba tau to look the other way and let some ba tau stay behind.

Thank you for the very interesting explaination of "Tau" LVF.


What was "Hoa" mean??

Hoa=flower. Therefore chinese people=flower people

hoa = flower

sorry. hehe.

must be Hoa like Huaxia.

Vietnamese and Chinese have a long history with each other and many Vietnamese have married Chinese and many Chinese have married Vietnamese. For some 100% Vietnamese or some 100% Chinese to degrade the other group is not constructive to the relationship of two cultures. I advise that some of you who have the mentality of disliking Vietnamese or Chinese for whatever reason, please don't displace this kind of thoughts to the Vietnamese because you will be surprised to find that many Vietnamese have a Chinese heritage in them and vice versa. This is detrimental to your advancement in your career or profession if you keep up this kind of thinking in the real world.

nobody has said anything like that here so far.


you're the only one thinking that.

OK, I am happy to hear that.

ok this is what i think about tàu people in chợ lớn: (mind if i type it in vietnamese?)

Người Tàu có nhiều người rất tốt và sống rất trung thực. Họ sống rất hòa đồng với cộng đồng người Việt. Đó là một điều tốt.

Nhưng có nhiều người lòng dạ chẳng hơn gì loài thú. Sinh ra ở Việt Nam (hoặc sống ở Việt Nam), ăn cơm Việt, uống nước Việt, rồi đến khi sang Mỹ lại trở mặt với chính người Việt, xem Việt Nam không ra gì, lại còn đi nói xấu người Việt nữa chứ. Tôi nghĩ ông Stephen cũng đã từng gặp hoặc nói chuyện nhiều với những người như thế này rồi. Sao họ không nghĩ đến ngày xưa cha mẹ họ (hoặc bản thân họ) chạy nạn sang Việt Nam? Ta đã tạo điều kiện cho họ có cuộc sống mới và làm ăn. Họ cũng nên tôn trọng ta một chút chứ. Nếu họ nghĩ ở bên Tàu tốt hơn thì tại sao không ở lại bên ấy cho rồi, sang Việt Nam làm gì?

Nhưng đó chỉ là một số người, không phải người Tàu nào cũng vậy.

omg, omg, omg


what is he saying about me!!!!!!!!


omg, omg ,omg

??? u can't read Vietnamese? omg

ain't that something!

I have to type the whole thing again (in English)

here to piss him off huh??!?!

lol i typed vietnamese because i express myself better in Vietnamese than in english

I totally agree with you. I met a girl like that in university. Her name was Vinh so I asked her if she was Vietnamese. She snapped back at me saying, "No, I'm Chinese!" So I said, but your name is--- "No, I'm Chinese!" she snapped again cutting me off. I was so annoyed so I said, "Well then change your name back to Wing!" That's the Chinese equivalent of Vinh, if you didn't know!" What an idiot! I later saw an article with her picture in it and she spelt her name as Vin, without the "h." Whatever, I'm just happy that people will not think she's Vietnamese anymore.

who give a fu-k about them

it would be a shame for us if people think she's vietnamese.

she is not pretty enough jk

Translation

This is what I think about ethnic Chinese people from Chinatown in Ho Chi Minh City.

Chinese have many good people who live an honest life. They live peacefully with the Vietnamese community. This is a good thing.

However, there are some ethnic Chinese people who are very mean. They are born in Vietnam (or living in Vietnam), eat Vietnamese rice, drink Vietnamese water; however, when they arrive in the United States, they turn their back against the Vietnamese community, do not see Vietnamese community as equal, and talk badly about the Vietnamese community. I think Mr. Stephen also encounter these type of people like this. Why cannot some ethnic Chinese people remember in the old days when their parents had to escape to Vietnam from China? We the Vietnamese community in Vietnam offered these ethnic Chinese people a new environment where they can improve their life. Some of these ethnic Chinese should have the decency to respect the Vietnamese community. If they think China is better, why don't they go back to China, instead they migrate to Vietnam?

But my observation only applies to some ethnic Chinese, not all ethnic Chinese are like that.

______________


Please correct my translation if it is wrong. Thank you.

Agreeeeeed.

I see the b.s. too. But most Chinese I know dislike the Viets who aren't in the cities but are in the country side who haven't been to "school".

dung'

hehehehe thanks SoCal.


I never thought about that perspective before. Vietnam could've treated the Chinese like how the Indonesians or Koreans or Japanese do to their Chinese minorites, but was open arms.


I think a good amount of ngoui Tau do look down on Viets, but never as far to not have friendships with Vietnamese people. They might say something like Viets don't tip as well, have a lazier work ethic, or act and dress a bit trashy. But never to the point where they think Viets are inferior or something. Only a few like Mochichuchu think that....

My dad relates more to Vietnamese than he does with mainlanders after Mao's influence. Mainlanders are like from a different planet to my parents when considering the employees at our restaurant.

yeah right

LOL. he probably meant the old people who don't tip much. younger Viets tip a lot better than most other people IMO.

don't take it too seriously.


it's only stupid boring people who like talking about these stereotypes.

it seems fine to me. the words aren't translated exactly but I think the meaning is well translated.

We all can drink to this statement

Who are you??

troll
come here doggy

người Tàu like Lam Trường and Trường Vũ are very nice