Typhoon Story

When I woke up this morning, the first thing on my mind was: "Do my family members need to go to work?" A typhoon was close enough to Hong Kong and business should not be usual. The involuntary windfall to break the routine is generally hard to resist by office workers and city dwellers.

When I was young, typhoon posed a threat to our home and we took every precaution to minimize the damage. My illiterate grandmother and my dad often recited a warning proverb: "Sai buk sek wu tai gor guo!" I felt it meant the northwesterly wind from somewhere could be stronger than 'guo'.

"What is 'guo'?" led to my research and discovery of its sound and meaning as "the echo of strong winds between mountains" - a word unique to Sunwui or Xinhui district of Gangdong - my ancestral root. The thought associated me back to the good old days when my grandmother and my dad were around, although the going was tough. I speculated that the older generations felt happy if they could provide the basics to the family.

I have never relayed the proverb to my family members as I could not pass on something that I did not know. Moreover, the conventional Sunwui wisdom cannot be compared with modern day weather forecast. But now, I have talked about the proverb and am sharing the typhoon story, as they may go away while typhoons will not!