Zodiac Hierarchy
Out of all the animals in the Chinese Zodiac, the rat is the least referenced in the world of Cantonese slang. A beach rat is the description of someone who specializes in robbing people at the seaside. The only other rat saying is one which relates to snakes i.e. snake head, rat eyes. This is a crafty or cunning person, someone who looks tricky or unreliable. A snake head is someone involved in moving illegal immigrants from mainland China to Hong Kong or other destinations. In Jackie Chan’s The Medallion, Julian Sands played a villain named Snakehead. Taken to a further extreme, a two-headed snake is either a servant of two masters or someone who works for both sides in a deal. If someone in China decides to remake Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars then this would be the perfect title.
On the flip side, Mr. Snake can be a term of address for either a policeman or a male teacher. A snake banquet is a location where cops posing as customers are found. A snake nest is a hiding place. Letting the snake out means to send in an undercover cop or to get a journalist to infiltrate the public. Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon contains a visual allusion to a Cantonese pun called beating the grass and scaring the snake. This means to alert an enemy to your activities, especially if it is by accident. If you hit a snake and it crawls up the stick, it means that you have exploited a situation to your advantage. Bruce lost a lot of weight during the making of Enter the Dragon. Fittingly, a water snake waist refers to a slender person. Killing the snake is actually a handjob pun referring to prostitutes. At the other extreme, a soft-skinned snake is an apathetic person.
If someone is more cunning than a snake with no tail, it means that they never get caught. By comparison, a roast pig without a tail is an omen since a roast pig is never with its tail in ceremonies honouring the dead. Unlike pigs, it’s snakes that are seen as lazy such as one saying that goes snake king, or even catching snakes (which means catching shirkers). Regardless, pigs are frowned upon despite how much the Chinese love pork. People in Hong Kong love to use pigs to describe someone as foolish, especially bungee jumpers (“stupid pig jumping”). Like how men can be described as sexist pigs in the West, Hong Kong has similar sentiments such as salted pig’s knuckle. One saying in particular reminds me of a 1972 film titled Deliverance i.e. slaughtering a pig, as in making someone squeal from sex.
Having one’s roast pig eaten refers to the fact that one’s partner is not a virgin. Yes, they have spit roasts in Hong Kong. There is a complimentary saying about pigs, or piglets rather. It’s called piglet plan. It is an insurance agent’s parlance that refers to an insurance scheme specifically for children. There is another flattering term about pigs. The term is pig basket enters water. This means having many different ways to make money but this can be anything from something as simple as a side hustle or revenue that’s coming from multiple enterprises, which is what differentiates entrepreneurs from mere money-makers. One term sounds like damning with faint praise, and it goes “a stinking pig head will have its Bodhisattva with a blocked nose” i.e. every offer, however bad, will find its taker.
For all of the derision aimed at the pig, there are sinister undertones. Selling a little pig is a phrase used to describe child trafficking. The people in Hong Kong understand the significance of selling a child’s future short, which is why a dragon is a nickname for an academic strategy that enables children to progress from elementary school to high school within the same institution. A dragon, generally, can refer to multiple services being available under one roof. Coincidentally, you know that you can achieve success that goes through the roof if someone says a dragon will eventually go through a phoenix. Although you have to be careful about not being seen as blowing smoke up someone’s bottom or someone will say in Cantonese: sky, flower, dragon and phoenix.
In spite of the whimsical underpinning, there is an insidious overtone. A Dragon Head is the leader of a Triad society. The numerical code associated with this rank is 489. If someone attempts to make a truce with an enemy or a former friend then they are described as a non-fierce dragon who crosses the river. This is reminiscent of the Chinese title for Bruce Lee’s The Way of the Dragon i.e. Fierce Dragon Crosses the River. Dragon crosses river is a slang term which means a powerful outsider has an impact on local affairs. It’s unfortunate that Bruce’s character, Tang Lung (China Dragon) wasn’t a mechanic because this term can also mean a lead used to start one vehicle while using the battery of another. When Tang Lung goes to the bank, there should have been a long queue because there is a Cantonese term which describes one as standing on a dragon’s tail.
Bruce Lee fan Stephen Chow made a movie called Shaolin Soccer which automatically conjures the memory of one Cantonese term: two dragons rising from the sea i.e. the action of a goalkeeper punching the ball away from the goal using both fists. To shoulder a water dragon is to embezzle. This is another example of an insurance agent’s jargon. Similarly, scraping thick dragon means making a lot of money in an illegal business or in a dishonest manner. The Chinese understand peaks and valleys more than anyone, which is why the zodiac is balanced between the lowly creatures and the more esteemed ones. As such, this is reflected in how I transition from one sign to the other. “How the mighty have fallen” might as well be known in Chinese as a dragon becomes a dog. A dog home is a messy home. A sycophant can be called a “shine shoe dog” or described as following dog’s tail, especially someone who jumps on a bandwagon.
Yes, the Chinese even have their version of “dog eat dog” i.e. dog bites dog bone. This specifically means fighting among members of the same group, especially a crime gang. If a person is unable to say pleasant things then it’s a case of a dog’s mouth not producing ivory. Even something as simple as telling someone to get out of the way can be summarized as a good dog does not obstruct the road. A wet dog climbes on shore is a big spender, while a dog who goes up the roof is someone who behaves secretively for a suspicious reason (especially someone who participates in an extramarital affair). Dogs are looked down on so much that being ungrateful is described as treating a good heart like a dog’s lung. The only dignified expressions about dogs are “dog eyes look down upon people” and dog king. The privileged monicker of the latter refers to an anti-hawker patrol officer who prevents illegal street trading. “Puppy group” is paparazzi.
An ox spirit is a bully whereas “an ox who opens up a wasteland” refers to a revolutionary person, but not everything is peachy in the world of oxen. A ball ox is a young person who is more interested in playing soccer than studying. Riding an ox while looking for a horse means working one job while looking for a better one. Meanwhile, tall ox and big horse is a way to describe someone as both well-grown and well-developed. Despite Monkey King being one of the most respectable characters in Chinese literature, there isn’t much to be said about the monkey in Cantonese culture. A loose string monkey is either a naughty child or someone who is no longer under the control of their guardian or superior. A monkey spirit is essentially a man child whereas monkey buttocks refers to a person’s face blushing from embarrassment.
In terms of respect, a horse is somewhere between a dog and a dragon. A sycophant is described as stroking a horse’s flank. A perverse variation on that is cleaning the horse’s stable — stealing from the home of a friend. “Spider’s thread and horse’s footprints” could easily be the title of a Chinese mystery thriller since it means traces of evidence. In fact, “Iron legs, horse eyes, fairy stomach” refers to the required qualities for an investigative journalist. The latter quality refers to the ability to go without regular food. “Showing a horse’s leg” means revealing a big secret. Borrowing horses means borrowing followers from another Triad gang, especially if it involves paying them. As to why this would be the case, there is an old Chinese proverb that states the enemy of my enemy is my friend. To parade a winning horse can apply to having a trophy wife or a boxing champion. A horse’s bucket is a toilet. Being independent is exemplified in Cantonese culture as needing to walk when one’s horse dies.
To bind horse can either mean taking a stance in a fight, or a minibus lingering in front of the cross-harbour tunnel to fill up before crossing. Speaking of vehicles, an iron horse is a police motorbike. Mounting a horse can either mean getting ready to travel or a woman sexually riding a man. There is a Kung Fu movie called Two on the Road where someone specializes in the horse style of Kung Fu. There is a Cantonese saying which goes “In a crisis, a horse can move in the field” or some such or other. This means to be flexible in order to adapt to circumstances in an emergency. This is a reference to the rules of Chinese chess. There is even a Kung Fu movie called The Mystery of Chess Boxing. There is a term which goes “putting the chariot and horse pieces openly on the chessboard” — to act in an overt manner like putting all one’s cards on the table.
1993 was the year of the rooster which is why film-maker Wong Jing made it clear with the Chinese titles of Stephen Chow’s Fight Back to School III (when it was released the week before Chinese New Year as Escape Study, Prestige Dragon III: The Year of the Rooster) and Jet Li’s Last Hero in China (released months later as Wong Fei-Hung: Iron Chicken Fighting Centipede). In the Chinese language, rooster and chicken are almost the same word except rooster has an extra character which means male. The only slang term that would allow for a male interpretation would be chicken cookie (a Hong Kong police sergeant), a chicken head (a pimp who perceives hookers as chickens), iron beak children (a difficult opponent in an argument) and big chicken refuses small rice (an important person will not bother with minor matters).
At this point, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t talked about tiger slang. Last summer, I had already written an article about it. It’s called Tiger Spirit. It’s about Bruce Lee, and you can find it on my site: Pop Cult Master. What I will say is that there are two sayings which I didn’t include. A tiger’s cave is a dangerous place whereas the Chinese version of leading a leading a lamb to the slaughter is escorting a lamb to the tiger’s mouth. That’s probably more effort than what I’m willing to put in for the goat. The only sayings are ones pertaining to a scapegoat. Finally, we have the rabbit. There is only one slang term in Cantonese culture, and it’s not a flattering one (especially if you were born in the year of the rabbit). A rabbit is the nickname of a boy kept by an older man for sex. In the West, a rabbit would be called a twink.
