Dr. Zoe Lam
PhD in Linguistics, University of British Columbia, Canada
According to my records, this “Cantonese Little Prince” project started on 1 May 2011. My classmate Tsoi and I had both been collecting editions of The Little Prince in different languages, so we both thought, at the same time: “It would be great to have a Cantonese version!” The Hakka Little Prince came out in 2000. If Hakka can do it, why not Cantonese? And so the translation project began. A lot happened between 2011 and 2017: Tsoi travelled all over the world and gained experience in publishing; I went to Canada to teach Cantonese and found there were very few materials for children; more and more Hong Kong netizens were writing in written Cantonese, and society paid more attention to the voice of Cantonese. Against this background, and after Tsoi’s hard work, the book was finally born. If you don’t know Cantonese and bought this book out of pure curiosity, I encourage you to translate one in your own hometown language (Hokkien or Shanghainese, for example). If you are a Cantonese speaker, I hope you’ll find a chance to read this book aloud, and feel the subtle difference between “the grown-ups are really strange” (啲大人真係好奇怪) and “the grown-ups are really damn strange” (啲大人真係好鬼奇怪). If you have children, I encourage you even more to read it to them; one day they will understand what “what is essential is invisible to the eye” (最重要嘅嘢都係無形於雙眼) means.