Lizzie used to live in Hong Kong where she had lots of fun buying consumer electronics and being taller than almost everybody.
She learned to speak Chinese and to be inscrutable.
Lizzie's Chinese friends called her Eleesabaat. (In Cantonese, baat is the lucky number eight and means wealth and good fortune.) Lizzie was considered a lucky person, not only because her name has baat in it, but because she is a lefty, which most surely is a sign of genius.
Unfortuately, with Lizzie gone, the British decided that there was no reason to keep Hong Kong as a crown colony and so they let it revert to the People's Republic of China on July 1, 1997.
Here are some of the useful words and expressions that Lizzie learned while she was in Hong Kong:
| Ah-Ba | father (affectionate term) |
| amah | house maid |
| Basic Law | Constitution for post-1997 Hong Kong |
| BLCC | Basic Law Consultative Committee which helped write Basic Law |
| CAAC | Chinese national airline. Stands for "Chinese Airliners Always Crash" |
| Cantonese | Chinese dialect spoken in Hong Kong |
| catty | Chinese unit of weight; approx. 1.33 lb or 0.7 kg |
| CCTV | Chinese Central Television. Official national television network |
| CMB | China Motor Bus. HK bus company known for its reckless drivers |
| choi sum | delicious Chinese vegetable |
| congee | rice porridge |
| conservative | in HK context, someone whose politics are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun |
| daai paai dong | low-priced street-side restaurant |
| Daya Bay | nuclear power plant just upwind of Hong Kong |
| dim sum | tasty dumplings served literally a la carte, on carts wheeled table-to-table in Chinese restaurants. |
| dollar | 1 Hong Kong dollar (HK$1.00) = US$0.13 |
| Executive Council | Governor's appointed cabinet of advisors |
| faan gwailo | more belligerent term than "gwai lo" |
| fung shui | Chinese traditional belief in good fortune in relation to geographical alignment of structures |
| gwai | ghost; demon |
| gwaipoh | female gwailo |
| gwailo | "demon man"; in other words, a foreigner |
| hoi moon lai see | lucky money given by a groom to bridesmaids to make them "open the door" to his bride before a wedding |
Hung Hom | low rent district in Kowloon |
| hung mo gwai | "red haired demon"; belligerent term for gwailo |
| Inland Revenue | tax department |
| Joint Declaration | 1984 pact, in which Britain agreed to hand over Hong Kong to China |
| Kai Tak | Hong Kong's international airport |
| Kowloon | Peninsula which forms part of the colony where lived. |
| Lantau Island | outlying island; site of new airport now under construction |
| Legco | Legislative Council; Hong Kong's semi-legislature |
| Macau | Portuguese colony near HK; reverts to China in 1999 |
| Mai Po Marsh | wildlife preserve along the border with China |
| Mongkok | Kowloon district crowded with people and boutiques |
| MTR | Mass Transit Railway; the subway train |
| New China News Agency | see "Xinhua" |
| Nathan Road | major shopping area and traffic corridor of Kowloon |
| New Territories | northern half of the colony of Hong Kong |
| Ni hao ma | Mandarin for "How are you" or "hello" |
| The Peak | posh residential area on top of Victoria Peak |
| PRC | People's Republic of China |
| Public Order Ordinance | law empowering government to censor the press |
| SAR | Special Autonomous Region; what HK is after 1997 |
| Shenzhen | Chinese industrial city bordering Hong Kong |
| shoe shiner | Cantonese term for sycophant or "bootlicker" |
| to taam | to spit; another of Hong Kong's national pastimes |
| Tolo Harbour | highly polluted body of water in New Territories |
| triad | Chinese criminal gang |
| Tsim Sha Tsui | tourist district, known for dishonest shopkeepers |
| turtle's egg | highly derogatory Chinese insult |
| Urban Council | responsible for museums, libraries and parks |
| wai | Cantonese way to answer the telephone |
| Xinhua (pron. "Shin-wa") | New China News Agency |
| 8 | lucky number in Cantonese, means "wealth" |
| 88 | twice as lucky as number 8 |
Meet Lizzie's friend
Lily Wong
who helped Lizzie with this page.