三分之一層房子

[Lu]

Another translation question. In 1977, a man in Hong Kong goes to the jewelry store to buy quite a lot of gold, cash. The jeweller is surprised to see all that cash: 七萬元，已足夠在灣仔買三分之一層房子了。

 

My question: what's a 三分之一層房子? Is it simply one-third of a floor (but what a strange kind of concept, why would that be a unit)? One floor in a three-floor building? Something else? The hypothetical house is not mentioned again. The English translation has 'It was enough to buy a triplex apartment in Wan Chai', and that might be correct, but I can't find confirmation elsewhere. Googling 三分之一層 didn't help, Pleco doesn't know either.

 

Thanks for any good ideas!

[lips]

$70,000 was 1/3 the price of a flat in Wan Chai.

Just now, Lu said:

七万元，已足夠在灣仔買三分之一層房子了。

Where was this published?  A strange mix of simplified and traditional characters.

[Lu]

The strange mix of traditional and simplified is purely a result of my rather stubborn input system, which if I don't pay close attention, all too often produces simplified or Japanese characters when I am in fact trying to type traditional. I'll fix my post.

 

Thanks also for your answer.

[dwq]

層 is often loosed used as a counter in Hong Kong Cantonese for homes, regardless of how many floor it has.  So it could be one of the apartments on a multi-apartment floor, a multi-floor apartment, or even a multi-floor standalone house, or (stretching quite a bit, but I've heard it used this way) a whole multi-apartment high-rise building (more often counted using 棟).

 

[Flickserve]

One third (of the area) of an apartment.

 

I very much doubt the existence of three storey homes in that area of HK. 

[roddy]

I'd be inclined to ditch the fraction:

"70 grand? That's enough to buy a cupboard in Wanchai."

[陳德聰]

49 minutes ago, roddy said:

70 grand? That's enough to buy a cupboard in Wanchai.

I think contextually since it takes place in 1977 this is likely not sarcastic as it would be if it were said today.

[roddy]

Having read the lead-in more carefully, I think you're right. 

 

 

[Lu]

I agree, I don't read it as sarcastic. Which is why I find the fraction so odd. Why 1/3 of an apartment? Who ever buys one third of an apartment, or thinks of that instead of, say, a car, or a small room, or something like that? @dwq, you mean he could mean 'one floor in a three-floor building'?

[Flickserve]

It is a HK expression of relative value. E.g. Nowadays, 70 000 HK dollars will only buy you two to four square feet of a flat. Property in HK descriptions are by the square foot area. So a flat might be 600square feet. Which means 1/3 of the flat will be around 200 square feet. And 1/3 of a flat may have been easier to conceptualise as how much the one might be able to afford.

 

One of my colleagues once remarked his monthly wage couldn't even buy one square foot of a flat. 

[dwq]

Right. It is unlikely you can go to a real estate agent and have them sell you 1/3 of an apartment in real life, it is just an expression of how much that lump of money is worth.

 

As to why apartments and not cars, I'm not sure about 1977 but I can tell you about modern times. From personal experience HK people can't help being aware of real estate prices, since their ups and downs get constantly reported in the news.  Cars OTOH have always been luxury items and not a necessity because HK is relatively small in land area with enough public transport, and people not in the market for cars do not know their prices.

 

[Flickserve]

5 hours ago, dwq said:

 

As to why apartments and not cars, I'm not sure about 1977

 

Because HK people would rather own a property than a car. A car loses value, property has the chance to appreciate in value. Investment choices. 

 

In other places in the world where the population is not property ownership driven (especially in 1977), people may relate better  to other things of value to themselves.

 

 

 

[Lu]

Thank you @Flickserve and @dwq! I understand it now. I'll translate it as 'one-third of an apartment'.