Monday, October 15, 2007

hung de!


yesterday i was searching for some letters when i happened to see an old invitation card which tickled me quite a bit. 2005 was the year of the rooster as per chinese calendar.my father had received an invitation for a conference on insurance in taipei,taiwan.the first line of the invite was "in taiwan,we always serve a nice cup of hot tea to our honoured visiting guest to show our sincere warm welcome and hospitality". the last sentence of the invitation read as follows "we sincerely hope that you will give us a chance to serve you a cup of hot tea with a view of the world's tallest building...taipei 101".

i was quite amused to see this card with the caption "hung de", in the background of today's "chak de" mania sweeping india,
will someone who knows chinese enlighten me on the meaning of 'hung de'. does it mean happy new year or has it got anything to do with the rooster.or both?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I believe it has to do with serving tea. My office mate is from mainland China and I showed it to her and she thinks it means 'Serve tea', but apparently it is a very formal usage(not used in everyday vocabulary).

-Prita

gs said...

hello prita
thanks for sending me the meaning from an authentic chinese.

Lotus Reads said...

I have no clue what it means gs, but if you find out do let us know.

I'm curious to know...did your father accept the invite andmake the trip to Taiwan? I won a free ticket to Taiwan a few years ago at an airline party but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to use it.

K said...

I am translating whatever my colleague a fulungun activist said...

The first chinese character means Handling...the second and the third means tea..

so its handling tea..

Kavya

gs said...

thanks to prita and kavya for throwing light on the chinese words.probably it means raising a cup of tea to celebrate,like raising a glass of wine.

hello lr: the invitation arrived more than a decade after my father passed away.he still gets some invitations from abroad for annual insurance conferences.though he had travelled extensively in his heydays,he never travelled to kmt china.