HotLinerz's Dance-Log

Stepsheet: https://www.copperknob.co.uk/stepsheets/hakka-liang-moi-ID129057.aspx

It’s been 8 months since my last choreography (Un Dos Tres c/w Jaszmine Tan). I’ve been asked many times why I’ve not been choreographing. So here is one, co-choreographed with 3 good friends who are also of Hakka origin, Wendee Chen, Soo Wong and Adeline Cheng. It’s choreographed to a catchy Hakka music, with cha cha rhythm. We set its difficulty to high beginner with 32 counts, 4 walls. Different music versions are available, long, short, male singer, female singer… all versions worked fine. Just have fun with the fun options, on the last 4 counts whenever the syncopated beats come on. Hope you’ll enjoy it!

Just a background on what Hakka is to non-Chinese readers. Hakka is one of the many types of Chinese clans originating from Southern China in the province of Guangdong. Other clans you may have heard about are Hokkien, Cantonese, Hainanese, Teochew, Fuchow/Hockchew, etc, these different clans all speak different dialects (although using the same/unified written Chinese script). Each dialect is often very different sounding that others, such as the word “sleep” is pronounced as romanised in brackets: in Mandarin (Shui Jiao), Cantonese (Fan kao), Hokkien (Kun), Hakka (shoi mook)!! There are even different types of Hakka spoken in different villages! In Malaysia, the Chinese here are mainly 2nd-5th generations of Chinese (first generation being the immigrants from China) have been mixing together and thus, we are mostly conversant in at least one of these Chinese dialects. However, more and more of these dialects (and culture) are being neglected as we began learning and conversing in other languages, as lingua franca in various localities and medium of instructions in schools/institutions.

I am a third generation Hakka Moi (hakka girl) and my parents spoke to me in their mother-tongue (Hakka) till I was 5. I was very conversant in it, until when it was time to start school, my parents started conversing to me in Mandarin, so that I could communicate with my peers and teachers at school. From then on, my Hakka grasp began to decline and I wasn’t able to speak at all, though I could still understand what my relatives (my parents generation) spoke. When I moved to Penang, I had to learn the Hokkien, the lingua franca of the Penang Chinese. When I moved to KL for work, I started picking up Cantonese and am still learning. And Hakka was largely neglected, my family members don’t speak it anymore, we’re more comfortable with Mandarin, English and Malay. It’s sad, that the dialect will soon be used less and less and soon be forgotten. I would love to hold on to my Hakka roots and heritage. Not just the dialect, but the cuisine and culture along with it. So when some of us Hakka moi’s meet up (to dance/dine), we would throw in a few words here and there but the vocabulary is simply not strong enough to carry the whole conversation without the use of other languages. And that’s how someone mooted the idea of choreographing to a Hakka song, and the Hakka Liang Moi dance was born. 😀

Stepsheet: https://www.copperknob.co.uk/stepsheets/hakka-liang-moi-ID129057.aspx

Enjoy the video below, taken at SEGi University Kota Damansara. If you need music, pls feel free to request from anyone of us.