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Lesson Transcript

Hi guys! Welcome to Cantonese Holiday Words! Today we're going to talk about a Chinese events, it's called 驚蟄 (ging1 zat6) Jingzhe. The English is actually the romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation. Many people are not familiar with this event, so let’s see what it is!
1. 驚蟄 (ging1 zat6) "Jingzhe"
驚蟄係二十四節氣之一。 (ging1 zat6 hai6 ji6 sap6 sei3 zit3 hei3 zi1 jat1.) "Jingzhe is one of the twenty-four sections of the year."
In Chinese calendar, we have twenty four sections that are separated depending on the weather, for example, one of it is the hottest day. And Jingzhe is usually in early spring around March. It means that in the heaven palace, the God of Thunder will start putting thunders on to the earth to wake up the insects from the ground. That’s the beginning of spring.
2. 打小人 (daa2 siu2 jan2) "villain hitting"
A lot of people are familiar with this term more than 驚蟄 (ging1 zat6). We know about 打小人 (daa2 siu2 jan2) but we don’t know about 驚蟄 (ging1 zat6). It's believed that on 驚蟄 (ging1 zat6), on this day it’s most effective when you do 打小人 (daa2 siu2 jan2) "villain hitting”. So in Hong Kong a lot of people will go pay someone to hit a paper human shape thing, with the birthdate or their name, of someone you hate, or your love rifle, or your villain to your life. And then the old lady will hit the piece of paper with her slipper. To kinda put a curse on them. It’s kinda like a witchcraft, right? 打小人 (daa2 siu2 jan2)
我哋不如去睇打小人囉! (ngo5 dei6 bat1 jyu4 heoi3 tai2 daa2 siu2 jan2 lo3!) "Let's go watch the villian hitting!" Let’s go!
3. 橋底 (kiu4 dai2) "under the bridge"
Usually the 打小人 (daa2 siu2 jan2) ritual takes place under the bridge, because under the bridge is where the sun doesn’t hit, so it doesn’t have a lot of positive energy, it’s mostly negative energy. That’s how you summon the witchcraft, how the witchcraft work. Somewhere dark and wet!
鵝頸橋橋底有好多人打小人。 (ngo4 geng2 kiu4 kiu4 dai2 jau5 hou2 do1 jan4 daa2 siu2 jan2.) "There are a lot of people doing villain hitting under the Canal Road West bridge."
4. 迷信 (mai4 seon3) "superstitious"
中國人都幾迷信㗎。 (zung1 gwok3 jan4 dou1 gei2 mai4 seon3 gaa3.) "Chinese people are quite superstitious." Are you superstitious? I think I’m a little.
5. 時辰 (si4 san4) "specific time"
時辰 (si4 san4), for example, 出世時辰 (ceot1 sai3 si4 san4) “the specific time of your birth”. We use that for fortune telling, 占卜 (zim1 buk1), fortune telling.
用你嘅出世時辰嚟占卜。 (jung6 nei5 ge3 ceot1 sai3 si4 san4 lei4 zim1 buk1.) "Use your exact time of birth for fortune telling."
So that's it for today! Today we talked about Jingzhe. Please leave us a comment and subscribe to our channel, and check out CantoneseClass101.com. I’m Olivia, I’ll see you in other Cantonese videos! Bye!

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