Bat lau dung laai () is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

corruption of the Vietnamese phrase ''bắt đầu từ nay'', meaning "from now on" (' = begin, start; ' = "from", ' = "now", ). The phrase was made famous in the

1980s File:1980s replacement montage02.PNG, 335px, From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, ''Space Shuttle Columbia, Columbia'', lifts off in 1981; US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union, Soviet General Secretary of the Communist Party of ...

and

1990s File:1990s decade montage.png, From top left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth after it was launched in 1990; American jets fly over burning oil fields in the 1991 Gulf War; the Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993; the World ...

in Hong Kong, due to a Vietnamese-language radio

public service announcement A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. Oftentimes these messages feature unsettling imagery, ideas or behaviors that are des ...

that was broadcast, nearly hourly, on public radio broadcaster

RTHK Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service of Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econom ...

Background of the radio announcement

The broadcast was first made on 16 August 1988, which announced the government's decision to implement a screening policy that would separate refugees from non-refugees (or boat people with economic motivations). The statement was read by Chung Wai-ming, a well-known RTHK radio personality. The Vietnamese portion of the broadcast was read by a Vietnamese boat person who was about to be repatriated.

Content of the announcement

Original text of the announcement

The radio announcement began with a sentence in

, the most commonly spoken Chinese variant in Hong Kong.

香港 ��府��越南船民已經實施甄別政策。跟住嗰段越南話廣播，就係向佢哋講述呢個政策嘅內容。

This was then followed by a paragraph in Vietnamese.

Bắt đầu từ nay, một chính sách mới về thuyền nhân Việt Nam đã được chấp hành tại Hồng Kông. Từ nay về sau, những thuyền nhân Việt Nam kiếm cách nhập cảnh Hồng Kông với thân phận những người di tản vì vấn đề kinh tế sẽ bị coi là những người nhập cảnh phi pháp. Là những người nhập cảnh phi pháp, họ sẽ không có chút khả năng nào để được đi định cư tại nước thứ ba, và họ sẽ bị giam cầm để chờ ngày giải về Việt Nam.

After that, the announcement ended with another sentence in Cantonese.

剛才嗰段越南話廣播，係向企圖進入香港嘅越南船民，講述香港對佢哋實施嘅甄別政策㗎。
'

Meaning of the announcement in English

The first sentence in Cantonese Chinese: The message in Vietnamese: The final sentence in Cantonese Chinese:

Use of the phrase in Hong Kong

Due to the frequency of the broadcast, many

Hong Kong people Hongkongers (), Hong Kongers, Hong Kong citizens and Hong Kong people are demonyms that refer to a resident of Hong Kong, although they may also refer to others who were born and/or raised in the territory. The earliest inhabitants of Hon ...

came to learn the phrase. Some, however, mistook the phrase as a term of greeting, similar to sawasdee in Thai. The phrase eventually became a metaphor for

Vietnamese people The Vietnamese people (, ) or the Kinh people (), also known as the Viet people or the Viets, are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day northern Vietnam and Dongxing, Guangxi, southern China who speak Vietnamese language, Viet ...

and even

Vietnamese culture The culture of Vietnam (, vi-hantu, 文化越南) are the customs and traditions of the Vietnamese people, Kinh people and the other Vietnamese ethnic groups, ethnic groups of Vietnam. Vietnam is part of Southeast Asia and the Sinosphere due ...

. The term is now considered to be a derogatory slur for Vietnamese people.

Portrayal in Hong Kong media

Early portrayal

The first recorded instance of the usage of "Bắt đầu từ nay" in Hong Kong entertainment programmes was during the 1980s, when it was used in a segment of the light entertainment show '' Enjoy Yourself Tonight''. In the segment, a fight in the refugee camp was parodied, and two actors, using the stage names "Bắt đầu" and "Từ nay", roughed up one of the audience (played by an actor) in the "

Legislative Council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...

" meeting who was well known for creating commotions during Legislative Council meetings.

1990s

During the 1990s, some asylum seekers managed to use self-made tools to cut through the fence around the refugee camps and escaped. This incident was replayed on

's news parody programme Headliner. In the video, the phrase was split into the following *Bắt đầu? (不漏?) (phonetically close to "bat lau", which means "leakless?", a reference to the supposedly high security measures in the refugee camp) *từ! (洞!) (phonetically close to "dung", which means "hole!", a reference to the holes that were cut and used as escape routes). *nay! (拉!) (phonetically close to "laai", which means "arrested!", a reference to the eventual arrest of the escapees).

2000s

In the 2000s, Vietnamese cuisine became popular in Hong Kong, and the phrase, which had faded out of memory after the resolution of the refugee problem, resurfaced in an advertising campaign for a Vietnamese restaurant.

2010s

The phrase was used at least twice during the 2010s on books. *2010 travel book on Vietnam used the phrase in its title. *A Hong Kong

émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social exile or self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French verb ''émigrer'' meaning "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Hugueno ...

e to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

used the phrase in her 2017 book on Vietnamese boat people, titled ''bắt đầu từ nay: The Boat People Saga''.

References

External links

A recording of the actual "Bắt đầu từ nay" announcement that was broadcast on RTHK
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414205613/http://www.rthk.org.hk/classicschannel/audio/80s_0030.asx , date=14 April 2016 Mass media in Hong Kong History of Hong Kong Vietnamese diaspora Vietnamese refugees Cantonese words and phrases