A tribute to Siew Keong

See what’s my friend doing…..

This is Siew Keong in close up

Wonder why the word Siew Keong 小强 is used as the name, the affectionate name for cockroach?

It all started in Stephen Chow’s movie titled 唐伯虎点秋香.
If you don’t read Chinese, here’s the translation.

Stephen Chow in his Movie Flirty Scholar, he’s in love with the Beautiful Girl, QiuXiang (GongLi). So one day he was trying to get close to her by trying to work for QiuXiang’s family. And so he hired a guy to act as the dead father and he’s trying to earn money by selling himself as a slave to anyone who wants him (卖身 – or literally selling one’s body is very common in the past) . At a time when QiuXiang’s servant is trying to persuade QiuXiang to ‘buy’ Stephen Chow, another guy came into the act and this time he’s selling himself to budy his whole family of 6.

Both Stephen Chow and this guy, WengChong fought each other to see who’s fate is the worst among themselves, to get the sympathy from QiuXiang. WengChong brought a dog and it suddenly died, all of a sudden, Stephen Chow is at a lost, and when he spotted a cockroach on the floor creeping near the servant, and when she mis-stepped on it (cockroach), Stephen immediately exclaimed , “Siew Keong, Siew Keong! How could u die now when I’ve done so much to you to educate you, and bringing you up, how could I live seeing my son die earlier than me, your rightful parent!!!

And from then on, Siew Keong has become the affectionate name for Cockroach in the Chinese Lingo.

(** this is not exactly what Stephen said, just the closest version I could translate to let you get the whole idea) There’s a Flash video below which you could watch!! Have fun 🙂

其實係周星馳的”唐伯虎點秋香”中,星爺想盡辦法要入華府,便找個亞叔搾死扮自己亞爸,賣身葬父.點知這時有另一個人(梁榮忠飾演 )也想到這點,竟然””賣身葬全家””就連跟在忠仔身後的一隻吠吠”旺財”都突然死亡,之後星爺就同忠仔鬥慘,求祺踩死隻蟑螂就叫”小强,小强呀,枉我對你供書教學,而家竟然要我白頭人送黑頭人,嗚~~嗚!!”

從此,蟑螂就叫做小强.

This is taken from somewhere on the net : Just to let u understand more of the origin of the name Siew Keong.