The Teochew Store Blog

Update:amendments made to reflect the correct pronunciations of the following surnames - 韋, 顏, 史, 藍, 戴, 方, 倪, as well as additions of other surnames 單/单, 區/区, 查 and 費/费. Special thanks to our reader Lee Kheng Nguan for his contributions.

For the very special person in our lives

For full lyrics, click Read more

Where do the Teochew people come from? The Teochew region in southern China is the obvious answer.

Yet if one is to run a search on the Internet, he or she would find a string of references stating that our ancestors came hundreds of years ago from the Central Plains in the Yellow River reaches, thousands of miles away.

Click "Read more" to begin our journey of discovery

Teochew music reaches a new level of COOL

Another New Year has begun!  Time for resolutions (and re-solutions), but here's a timely reminder: the worth of the wisdom from our elders never diminishes.

Two months ago, The Teochew Store made our popular "Conversational Teochew In A Month" (潮州話一月通) text-cum-audio self-learning course available to all to download for FREE.  To help learners revise and have a structured means for further practice, a friend and supporter of our website, as well as keen advocate for the revival of southern Chinese languages, S.L., has created and generously volunteered to share two decks of Anki flashcards that cover the vocabulary terms and phrases/sentences in "Conversational Teochew In A Month". These flashcards may be used on computers as well as Android/iOs mobile devices.

編劇: 李銳通
木偶導演: 陳培森

This week The Teochew Store reviews Colloquial Teochew, a book that is the result of four years of dedicated work by a Singaporean Teochew. It compiles more than 6,000 common Teochew sayings and proverbs, and even features 37 Teochew expressions for different ways to cook!

In a month's time The Teochew Store will turn three. We remain a humble set-up, but at the same time just as committed as in the beginning to our mission in Restoring Community to Our People, Bridging Teochew Culture to the World.

In line with our conviction that every Teochew  should be given fullest opportunity and encouragement to be connected with the language, values and culture of our forefathers, we have decided to make available for FREE our store's hottest selling product "Conversational Teochew In A Month", as well as its Chinese versions "潮州话一月通 (简体字版)" and "潮州話一月通 (繁體字版)".

Teochew, like Cantonese and Hokkien, has a literary form that traces to at least the 10th century during the Tang dynasty, whereas Mandarin evolved in northern China only after the 13th century.

Here is a list of 99 Teochew expressions in their actual Chinese characters, as opposed to Mandarin ones that they are commonly confused with.

Spoken Teochew is both ancient and at the same time evolving, just like any other "live" languages. The Teochews settled in the Malay-speaking world covering Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have absorbed not a small number of native expressions into their daily vocabulary. Here we present a list of over 50 expressions.

Thailand, also known in the past as Siam, was the first stop of the Teochew during a series of migratory waves from the 18th to 20th century. Bangkok today has by far the largest Teochew community anywhere outside China.

Here we have a list of 181 Teochew loanwords found in the Thai language.

The social life of a Teochew centres around his/her extended family. This is something many of us living in big modern cities can be unused to.

One of our greatest fears is to be "ambushed" by a group of uncles or aunts whom we have not seen for a while, and being caught tongue-tied not remembering how to address them. But fret not. Getting the correct address for almost any relative can be real simple (yes!!!), if we keep by these ten basic rules....

By anecdotal accounts Teochew women are highly desired in China as ideal marriage partners. They are reputed for being gentle in character, imbued with strong family values and capable in managing the household. This is statistically supported by divorce rate of around 2 percent in Swatow in recent years, which is lower than most parts of the country and certainly a mere fraction of figures in Western societies. But what shapes the fine Teochew woman? Insights into letters written over a half a century ago by the Teochew husbands working abroad to home are instructive.

A song to go with your beers!

Music expresses the soul of a people. Since the Song dynasty (960-1279), the Teochew people have had our own music tradition that is distinct from other  Chinese regional music. Shaped by Teochew folk sensibilities, it is characterised by an intense concern with melodic variation. There are seven main genres of traditional Teochew music...