David Wong Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:50 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:50 PM My mum's a first generation Singaporean, who moved to Malaysia as a teen. Her parents were from 福州. Mandarin usage in Malaysia has more in common with that of Taiwan than with the mainland. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 13, 2012 at 09:07 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 09:07 PM I think this is what it looks like: http://www.nipic.com...37cdc871a8.html @jbradfor: I could be wrong but your link looks more like 清炒芥兰 because of the flower buds. See this link of 清炒芥兰 (5th picture down) http://mystyl3mylif3.blogspot.com/2011/09/restoran-tak-fok.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 13, 2012 at 09:14 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 09:14 PM I think this http://www.areyoueye.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=1362&g2_fromNavId=x23edc17f&g2_GALLERYSID=626ac110a965f05eb1e90f5f03c44c00 looks more like the 油菜 that David's talking about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 13, 2012 at 09:26 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 09:26 PM Could be. TBH, yao choy and 芥兰 look pretty similar to me, and I'm not really a huge fan of either. But at least we can agree that yao choy and 芥兰 look nothing like bok choy and napa cabbage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted January 13, 2012 at 11:03 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 11:03 PM That's hilarious. David Wong's avatar is there as well. Hey, that's unfair. I'm the one who started this whole thing (from the other thread), how come my avatar is missing. They've even got avatars of other members not even connected to this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Wong Posted January 13, 2012 at 11:40 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 11:40 PM Just spoke with our sitter. She does indeed call baby bok choy 油菜. And she says she's never seen the vegetable that we call 油菜 back on the mainland. However, she says one of her friends here call it 盖菜. I think that should clarify everything now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 14, 2012 at 01:17 AM Report Share Posted January 14, 2012 at 01:17 AM She does indeed call baby bok choy 油菜. Are you sure she's referring to baby bok choy? This video http://video.baomihu...9/5862235_P3P31 shows 海米烧油菜, the dish mentioned in this thread, but it's not baby bok choy. The announcer seems to have a Beijing accent also. The baby bok choy is in this video http://v.youku.com/v...E0MTU0ODg0.html Notice how the stems are shorter and more green. I say we just go with the English names! Edit: 盖菜 is similar to 芥菜 or mustard greens? Sometimes called "辣油菜" http://baike.baidu.com/view/60975.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Wong Posted January 14, 2012 at 10:14 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2012 at 10:14 PM Are you sure she's referring to baby bok choy? I'll let you decide. I took a photo of the bag of vegetables that she calls 油菜. Here's the link: http://www.flickr.co...N06/6697118947/ She also said that they call the smaller bunches 小油菜 and the larger ones 大油菜. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted January 15, 2012 at 12:59 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 12:59 AM I know very little about food, but I think what is in David's photo is 白菜. If it is of a mini size it is called 白菜仔 here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcdefg Posted January 15, 2012 at 01:51 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 01:51 AM And 油菜花 are the bright yellow flowers that cover the hills and low mountains of Luoping Yunnan 云南罗平。 I went to have a look last spring. Spectacular scenery. My understanding is that these flowers are processed to make relatively low quality cooking oil and the plants themselves are more often used as livestock feed. Some even get converted into biodiesel fuel. Lots of bees are active in the fields of Luoping, but their honey has a very strong taste, not terribly pleasant. I think it is mostly used for blending with other ingredients. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 15, 2012 at 02:17 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 02:17 AM To update jkhsu's post from #16..... Mandarin speaker: bok choy = 油菜 baby bok choy = 上海青菜 / 青江菜 napa cabbage = 白菜 yao choy = ? Cantonese speaker: bok choy = 白菜 baby bok choy = 白菜仔 napa cabbage = 黃芽白 yao choy = 油菜 Any takers to track down if the Taiwan names are the same as the "Mandarin" terms above? I'm sure this is just an approximation, and there are other variations as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 15, 2012 at 04:54 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 04:54 AM Just to confirm. Is this 白菜仔? Raw Cooked If it is, then it's not baby bok choy. David's pic actually looks like baby bok choy but it's the "bigger" kind. Let's go back to jbradfor's picture links: bok choy = http://www.skinnymoo...patch/bok-choy/ baby bok choy = http://www.friedas.c...ecialties&id=12 Do we agree on the bok choy and baby bok choy picture links? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xiaocai Posted January 15, 2012 at 06:30 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 06:30 AM There are regional variations. 油菜 to me can only be this. I believe it is normally referred as 菜心 choy sum in China towns overseas. If you somehow found that you don't agree with other forums members on the names of certain Chinese vegetables, please check out this post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 15, 2012 at 09:13 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 09:13 AM If you somehow found that you don't agree with other forums members on the names of certain Chinese vegetables, please check out this post. I don't think we're trying to agree on a single name. We already know that Cantonese and Mandarin speakers call the same vegetables (for example napa cabbage) different names. Right now there are different vegetables with different names all having to do with 油菜 and some kind of bok choy. We're just trying to make some sense out of it. In other words, we're not trying to agree if tomato should be called 西红柿 or 番茄; we're trying to figure out if it's really tomato that we're talking about. Thanks for the link to 油菜. That might be the one that jbadfor and David are referring to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xiaocai Posted January 15, 2012 at 09:52 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 09:52 AM Hmm. My point is, not all "Mandarin speakers" refer to same vegetable with the same name, and the same name can be used to mean different plants in Mandarin, too. People from different places may call potato 土豆, 马铃薯, 山药蛋, 洋芋 even when they all are speaking standard Mandarin; meanwhile, If someone is talking about 地瓜 in Mandarin, it can be sweet potato or Pachyrhizus erosus. Like I will have no idea if you ask me what is 上海青菜 / 青江菜, because we call it "瓢白" here and that is how I would call it in standard Mandarin as well. And I think 盖菜 is actually 芥菜 pronounced without palatalisation. We call it 青菜, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 15, 2012 at 09:59 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 09:59 AM Yes, thanks for the correction. We should not lump "Mandarin speakers" into a single category. Once everyone can agree on the picture, we should just list all the possible names. It would be next to impossible to figure out what it's called in every region. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xiaocai Posted January 15, 2012 at 10:18 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 10:18 AM Maybe not really related to what we are discussing, but below is a photo I took awhile ago when I was in Boxhill, Melbourne. It is kind of funny that I had learn the how they are called in Chinese in English... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 15, 2012 at 10:36 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 10:36 AM From your photo, it seems like Pak Choy is the Baby Bok Choy that we we're talking about and Baby Buk Choy is 白菜仔？ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xiaocai Posted January 15, 2012 at 11:07 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 11:07 AM Yeah, and the Buk Choy is apparently Pak Choy... Can it get any more confusing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted January 15, 2012 at 11:22 AM Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 at 11:22 AM and the Buk Choy is apparently Pak Choy I agree. In the photo the 白菜 with a p looks greener than the 白菜 with a b, which looks very white indeed at the bottom (hahahaha). I wonder what the real difference is. The website of the Vegetable Marketing Organisation in HK might be helpful (or confusing). There you can find something called 青白菜 (Chinese white cabbage, green). I wonder if that is the same as 白菜 with a p. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.