I had to have a look to see if it was true that bluebirds translated into penis in Malaysia , and it does ------ Malaysian Chinese are good at languages and dialects. Most of us speak English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin and dialects like Hokkien, Cantonese, Hainanese, Teochew etc...... Even if we don't speak other dialects we could understand roughly what other trying to say. I remember a joke told by my friend about an experience her Hainanese mother encountered. It happened many years ago. One day her mother went to a shop in Port Dickson to buy a badminton racket for her. She told her mother she wanted the brand "Blue Bird", in English. The mother not knowing what is the meaning of 'Blue Bird' told the shopkeeper the same thing the daughter told her. The Hokkien shopkeeper who unable to speak english and hainanese, asked her twice in Hokkien : "Lam Chiau Piau"? (Blue Bird brand?). He was trying to reconfirm with her what she actually wanted. 'Lam chiau' means 'blue bird' but it sounds close to the word penis in hokkien and I think may be in hainanese dialect also. The mother was very angry with the shopkeeper and scolded him for being rude to her before she left the shop angrily. She was still angry when she reached home and told the daughter what had happened. The daughter told her the actual meaning of 'Blue Bird' and they were laughing away. http://mollytoh.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/language-barrier.html?m=1
