HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 生日快樂！

How do we say happy birthday in Hong Kongese? What songs do we sing? What are the customs and taboos?

Birthdays are interesting in Chinese Culture in general. For some more traditional Chinese people and Hong Kongers, your life began from the moment when you were conceived, therefore when you were born, you were roughly one year old (This age interpretation varies from region to region). Most Hong Kongers that are accustomed to the modern understanding of birthdays celebrate theirs, just like most people would around the globe. It might strike you peculiar to hear some say they are celebrating their birthday, but their birthday doesn’t come until a month or two later. That is because some Hong Kongers, usually the older generation, celebrate just their Chinese lunar birthday, youngsters usually only celebrate according to the western calendar, while some celebrate both. Hong Kong is an international hub, so people will celebrate birthdays differently.

Here are the somewhat general rules when talking about birthdays with Hong Kongers whose ethnic background is Cantonese Chinese or Cantonese assimilated. Hong Kongers of other ethnic backgrounds generally celebrate birthdays according to their own cultural ways and for most, just the modern regular people way.

Some cultural pointers:

Hong Kongers usually make 18th (Official legal age), 60th,70th, 77th, 80th, 88th, 90th, 99th, 100th and 108th birthdays as a big deal. That’s because there is an old Chinese saying that most Hong Kongers haven’t heard of, 不到花甲不慶壽(Official PY: bat1 dou3 fa1 gaap3 bat1 hing3 sau6, Dummy's PY: But thou far gap but hing sau). 花甲壽 (Official PY: fa1 gaap3 sau6, Dummy's PY: far gap sau) is the 60th birthday. So the saying literally means, if you haven’t reached your 60th birthday, you shouldn’t celebrate your birthday at all. According to the Chinese sexagenary cycle (also known as Ganzi 干支紀年法 (Official PY: gon1 ji1 gei2 nin4 faat3, Dummy's PY: gone jee gay neen fat)), which is often used to do predictions, every sixty years is a term. It is kind of like saying you had finished your first cycle in life. So as to the reason why 60th birthday is called 花甲壽 (Official PY: fa1 gaap3 sau6, Dummy's PY: far gap sau), 70th is called 古稀壽 (Official PY: gu2 hei1 sau6, Dummy's PY: gu hey sau), etc, I will explain in another post if you are interested. ________________________

How to wish someone “Happy Birthday” in Hong Kongese?

Like I have mentioned, Hong Kong’s official languages are English and Chinese. Most people have a basic understanding of English, meaning even if they are older Hong Kongers, they will at least know the most common terms, such as “Hi”, “Hello”, “Thank you”, “You are welcome”. This common terms list can now have one more term, “Happy Birthday”. Yes. You might think that’s cheating, but that’s ingrained in our Hong Kongese language. In fact, some 200 years ago, when the Hong Kongers had to learn English due to colonialization, “Happy birthday” this term in English was learned by adding up Cantonese words that could form the sounds. It was later taught as 合皮鼻膚地 (Official PY: hap1 pei4 bei6 fu1 dei6) *This phrase doesn’t mean anything semantically, it literally only describes the sound. On the other hand, in Cantonese, Happy birthday is 生日快樂 (Official PY: saang1 yat6 faai3 lok6 faat3, Dummy's PY: sang yet fie lok) *literal word by word translation: Birth Day quickly be-happy.

生

In this context means: born, birth, life. In other contexts 生 could mean: raw, unrefined, grow, etc.

日

In this context means: day, date. In other contexts, 日 could mean: sun, Japan. *At this point you might ask, if you didn’t know this already, is Sunday in Cantonese 日日? Actually no, 日日 in Hong Kongese means every day. Sunday is 星期日 or 禮拜日. Please note that in Mandarin, you would say 星期日 or 星期天. But in Cantonese we never say 星期天, it doesn’t sound right. 快樂 these two characters combined means happy, or happiness. ________________________

Other ways to say “Happy Birthday” in Hong Kongese

祝你生日快樂 Meaning: Wishing you a happy birthday Sometimes we would say “Happy birthday to you”, so how do we say that in Cantonese? Remember the grammar is very different from English. In Hong Kongese, we would say: 祝你生日快樂 Wishing you a happy birthday, instead of the literal translation of Happy birthday to you 生日快樂比你 (Which is not at all commonly heard). You might have also seen 祝生日快樂 where 你 You is omitted. This is usually used in a written format, more formal and polite. It is rare to say that out loud but if you do, people get it. 年年有今日,歲歲有今朝 Meaning: Every year you have today, every age you have this morning This is a very common phrase used amongst middle age people and older. It basically just means that I hope you will get another birthday next year and many years after.

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Other things to say along with Happy Birthday

In the Chinese culture, similar to Chinese New Year, you say nice idioms and phrases to wish the birthday person well. There are a few phrases here that might be helpful, but please pay attention to how old the person is you are speaking to. 福如東海 壽比南山 Meaning: Your luck is as big as the Eastern sea, your life is as long living as the Southern Mountain *Gender neutral and for elderlies. 青春常駐 Meaning: Youth will be with you always. *For females and middle age plus. 笑口常開 Meaning: you will always crack your lips open with a smile or laugh *Gender neutral, age-neutral 一世平安 Meaning: May peace and safety be with you for your lifetime This saying has become increasingly important due to the political uprising starting from June 9th, 2019 where many Hong Kongers feel they are no longer safe under the current rule of the HK government. This will be good. They will thank you for it. *Gender neutral, age-neutral ________________________

How to wish someone a happy belated birthday in Hong Kongese

Uh… we don’t usually, in the most traditional sense. A belated birthday is very much a western concept. Although many would celebrate their belated birthday with friends nowadays because everyone has got a busy time table. Ask any Cantonese speaking friends you know, they might tell you they have also heard people from the older generation say you can only celebrate your birthday early, but never late. Interesting, eh? I have heard different explanations.

1. 補祝 sounds the same as 寶燭，very unlucky 補祝 Meaning: belated celebration 寶燭 Meaning: 元寶蠟燭, Chinese ingots and candles. These are normally used for serving the dead. We burn the paper ingots for the dead as money in the other world and the candles signal to the ghosts that they are welcomed. It sounds extremely unlucky because a birthday is the celebration of the living not the dead.

2. A belated celebration is for the dead not for the living Some people say it is the tradition of Chinese people that only matters for after death will be celebrated after the fact, hence all birthdays, festival celebrations should be held before the fact. But if you must wish someone a belated happy birthday, then you would say something like, 「遲咗，但係生日快樂」meaning: “Late, but happy birthday.” or when it is written (via text and what not), you can type 「遲黎嘅生日快樂」meaning: belated happy birthday (Cantonese written version), or 「遲來的生日快樂」(Traditional Chinese written version).

How do the Hong Kongers celebrate birthdays?

After all the rules, customs, traditions and taboos, do you find that you understand birthdays in Hong Kong culture better? So let’s say this is the first time you have a Hong Konger friend that invited you to their birthday party, what do you do? What do you need to do to prepare yourself? Obviously it depends on the individual, but this might give you some hints. Where is the party? The venue gives you a big clue as to how they will celebrate their birthday. Is it at their home? (Unless your friend is rich, Hong Kongers’ homes often can only cater to small and intimate parties) Is it at a Chinese restaurant? (The celebration is mostly eating and Chinese activities, eg. Mahjong, Poker cards, Karaoke) Is it at a restaurant that’s not Chinese? (More casual) Is it just at a bar, or a karaoke? (Super casual) What should I bring? In terms of gifts, some prefer to get presents, some prefer to get red pockets. You may ask the person’s preference. Some people might tell you to not bring anything. If I am giving red pockets, how much should I give? How much is in that red pocket really shows how much you care about the person. So the more the better? Of course! I don’t think people would be upset about getting money! But at the same time, you don’t want to come off as cocky, like you are looking down on your friend by flashing your money. For me, as an artist and a writer, here is my rule of thumb: Children: $50 each red pocket Adult: $100 each red pocket (depending on how close) Elderly: $500 each red pocket (If related to you) *Remember, if you are single, you only hand out one red pocket. If you are married, you need to give two, one from yourself and one from your spouse. But of course, these are my preferences. How you would like to hand out your red pockets is entirely your choice.

What you sing at HK birthdays?

We have several songs for Birthdays. We have of course, the Cantonese version of the Happy Birthday song.

祝你生日快樂| 廣東話 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsAgYuDaks0

It’s basically just repeating 祝你生日快樂 for the whole song. You may use this song to really nail the pronunciation down.

祝壽曲 https://youtu.be/rQis5TkJG1E

This is the old school Cantonese Happy birthday song. It was written in 1969. ＊Note: the phrase 年年有今日,歲歲有今朝 mentioned earlier is also part of the lyrics.

Some vocab:

Age - 歲

Eg. How old are you this year?

你幾多歲啊今年？

I am 65 this year!

我六十五歲啦今年！

Balloon - 氣球／ 波波 (Means ball shaped object, not specific to balloons)

Eg. How many balloons did you blow up? 你吹左幾多個氣球／ 波波／ 波？

＊a word with two of the same characters combined as a noun is often seen as the object or the person speaking being cute. So if you don’t want to sound too cute, you can just say 波, one character. It is perfectly correct.

Born - 出世

Eg. Where were you born?

你係邊道出世嫁？

I was born in 1985.

我係1985年出世既。

Card - 卡／ 咭

Eg. I got you a birthday card.

我有張生日咭比你。

Cake - 蛋糕

Eg. Do you want some cake?

你要唔要啲蛋糕啊？

Celebrate － 慶祝

Eg. Let's go celebrate your birthday!

去慶祝你生日囉！

Present － 禮物

Eg. Did you buy a gift?

你有無買禮物？

No.

無。

throw a party － 開P

Eg. Have a Party - 開P

Last Sunday I had a party at my older sister's.

上星期日我家姐開P。