"Sun Say Gay" restaurant

[Greg Pratt]

A year or two ago, I picked up a postcard that had a photo of "Sun Say Gay
Restaurant". I bought it as a novelty, as I thought it was cute, and
pictured in my mind an elderly Chinese couple who were both perplexed and
relieved to now know why their son was still single and such a well-
respected hair stylist. :)

I knew where the restaurant was, vague, as I had walked by it before. A
month or two ago, I happened to remember the postcard when I walked past
the place, and scribbled down the info: Sun Say Kai Restaurant (Nhà Hàng
Tân Thê Giói), 220 Canal Street (at Baxter).

The name confirmed my suspicions: the photo was doctored for comical
effect.

Or was it?

Today, I plugged "Sun Say Gay" and "restaurant" into Google. Many hits
came back, not the least of which was the New York Times, which listed a
restaurant with the "Gay" name at 220 Canal St.

Does anyone know if this restaurant used to have the "gay" name? Is "sun
say gay" an even vaguely sensible phrase in any flavor of Chinese? Was it
a publicity gimmick with the name, similar to "Big Wong Noodles"? When and
why did it change?

From the photo, I can tell that it was "Gay" in the 1980s, if the photo is
undoctored. There's a phone booth in front of the place with "New York
Telephone" on it, with is post-divestiture but pre-NYNEX.

[David G. Imber]

Post by Greg Pratt
Does anyone know if this restaurant used to have the "gay" name? Is "sun
say gay" an even vaguely sensible phrase in any flavor of Chinese? Was it
a publicity gimmick with the name, similar to "Big Wong Noodles"? When and
why did it change?

My guess, and this is only a guess as I do not speak Chinese,
but have worked for Chinese companies for many years, is that the true
pronunciation of the character is "guy", but that if you were to look
it up in a Romanized dictionary it would be written as kai. Next time
I pass it I'll try to remember to look at the characters (Chinese and
Japanese use the same characters, and I read Japanese. Often the
pronunciations are the same or very similar). It's possible that the
owners changed it to the Mandarin pronunciation to avoid potential
unwanted associations. (IOW, sort of the opposite of a publicity
gimmick, they wanted to play it down).

I believe my wife told me that word of mouth has it they have
outstanding steamed buns and dumplings. I'll find out about that too
and report back.

DGI

[slim]

Post by David G. Imber

Post by Greg Pratt
Does anyone know if this restaurant used to have the "gay" name? Is "sun
say gay" an even vaguely sensible phrase in any flavor of Chinese? Was it
a publicity gimmick with the name, similar to "Big Wong Noodles"? When and
why did it change?

My guess, and this is only a guess as I do not speak Chinese,
but have worked for Chinese companies for many years, is that the true
pronunciation of the character is "guy", but that if you were to look
it up in a Romanized dictionary it would be written as kai. Next time
I pass it I'll try to remember to look at the characters (Chinese and
Japanese use the same characters, and I read Japanese. Often the
pronunciations are the same or very similar). It's possible that the
owners changed it to the Mandarin pronunciation to avoid potential
unwanted associations. (IOW, sort of the opposite of a publicity
gimmick, they wanted to play it down).
I believe my wife told me that word of mouth has it they have
outstanding steamed buns and dumplings. I'll find out about that too
and report back.

Correct on both counts, Mr. Imber. :-)
--
http://mindprod.com/politics/iraq.html

"How many American casualties is Saddam worth?
The answer is not very damned many."
- Dick Cheney, Seattle, August 1992

Donald Rumsfeld: "If you're asking if there's a direct
link between 9/11 and Iraq, the answer is no."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4865948/

On May 01, 2003, President Bush declared that,
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain --
I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the
interesting thing about being the president.
Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they
say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody
an explanation. "
- George Bush, Washington Post, 11-19-02

[David G. Imber]

On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 01:33:36 -0400, David G. Imber

Post by David G. Imber

Post by Greg Pratt
Does anyone know if this restaurant used to have the "gay" name? Is "sun
say gay" an even vaguely sensible phrase in any flavor of Chinese? Was it
a publicity gimmick with the name, similar to "Big Wong Noodles"? When and
why did it change?

My guess, and this is only a guess as I do not speak Chinese,
but have worked for Chinese companies for many years, is that the true
pronunciation of the character is "guy", but that if you were to look
it up in a Romanized dictionary it would be written as kai. Next time
I pass it I'll try to remember to look at the characters (Chinese and
Japanese use the same characters, and I read Japanese. Often the

[snip]

I can shed a little more light on this as I just walked past
there.

The first three characters of the restaurant's name are the
name proper, "Sun Say Kai", as it says in English. I'll get back to
that. The latter three characters mean "tea", "eating", and "place"
respectively, but I don't know how they're pronounced in Chinese. In
other words, the second three characters taken together just mean
"restaurant" or "diner" or some variant of that idea.

Those first three characters mean "New World" and in Japanese
would be pronounced "Shin Sekai"

Shin = rhymes with "pin" and means "new"

Se- = the "e" is soft, as in "met"

-kai = rhymes with "high"

It's easy to see how "Shin Sekai" would be related to "Sun Say
Kai". I would stick with my original theory that in the owner's
dialect, the "k" in "kai" is pronounced softly, like the "g" in
"girl". However, when this was put on the sign, it read "gay" and at
some point someone advised the owner that non-Chinese readers would
draw the whimsical inference the original poster did. So in response,
the owner changed the spelling to the orthodox dictionary rendering
"kai".

I know that depending upon which of the more than 200
languages of India is used by the owners of various Indian restaurants
(many of whom are actually Bangladeshi), the menu might offer "motor
paneer" or "mattah panir" or "matar poneer", etc. etc. This seems to
be a similar thing.

I still haven't eaten at Sun Say Kai, but it looked like a
lively, popular place. I'll have to drop in sometime.

DGI

PS: I'm reminded that "Son say gay" could be the three word
interpretation of the plot of the lovely movie "The Wedding Banquet",
as expressed by the father character, in his imperfect English.

[Greg Pratt]

Post by David G. Imber
I know that depending upon which of the more than 200
languages of India is used by the owners of various Indian restaurants
(many of whom are actually Bangladeshi), the menu might offer "motor
paneer" or "mattah panir" or "matar poneer", etc. etc. This seems to
be a similar thing.

It's similar to the Chinese problem in that you are transliterating a
foreign (non-European) language into Roman characters, and there have
been different models for doing so over the years. In the case of Indic
languages (especially north Indian), the word "mattar" (a kind of solid
cottage cheese) is probably virtually identical in several such languages;
the difference in spelling in English has to do with this wide variety of
transliterations that have come about.

[slim]

Post by David G. Imber
I still haven't eaten at Sun Say Kai, but it looked like a
lively, popular place. I'll have to drop in sometime.
DGI
PS: I'm reminded that "Son say gay" could be the three word
interpretation of the plot of the lovely movie "The Wedding Banquet",
as expressed by the father character, in his imperfect English.

OUCH! Thats a good one! ;-)
--
http://mindprod.com/politics/iraq.html

"How many American casualties is Saddam worth?
The answer is not very damned many."
- Dick Cheney, Seattle, August 1992

Donald Rumsfeld: "If you're asking if there's a direct
link between 9/11 and Iraq, the answer is no."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4865948/

On May 01, 2003, President Bush declared that,
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain --
I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the
interesting thing about being the president.
Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they
say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody
an explanation. "
- George Bush, Washington Post, 11-19-02