Beautiful Dinosaur

I keep two vocabularly lists on my PDA. One list is for new Cantonese words I learn and one for Mandarin. Since I live in HK where Cantonese is the main language, I try to learn a new Cantonese word everyday. The most recent Cantonese word I learned was "faw gnau" or literally fire cow. I learned this when I asked IT support for a spare power adaptor for my laptop. Apparently, the word for power adaptor is fire cow. The IT guy had no idea where this came from. Perhaps a power cord is like the tail of a cow and power is like fire? Anyway, that's my most recent Cantonese word.

The most recent Mandarin words are "piao liang mei mei" and "kong long." Literally they mean "pretty beautiful beautiful" and "dinosaur." Strange words unless you know the context. One of my colleagues from China told me the Internet has given rise to a new Net speak. The use of Web cams allows people to see who they're chatting with. "Piao liang mei mei" is used to describe a pretty girl you are chatting with on the Net and "kong long" is an ugly one. A little mean, but I found that slice of modern Chinese life amusing. :P