“What does ‘getting sold as piglets’ (in Canto) mean, Mom?” (「咩係比人賣豬仔呀， 媽媽？ 」)

We met a Swedish guy during the bus ride from Saranda to Himare. He was heading to Tiranë to catch his flight home. He bought the bus ticket in advance, thinking it was the bus taking the highway. No! He got put on the same bus as us, which takes the much slower coastline road instead of the highway route, which would double the time to get to Tiranë.  It’s the last bus of the day, so he had no other choice.  

Aidan overheard Charlie and me conversing about this Swedish guy’s situation and describing his situation using a Canto term, ' getting sold as piglets’ (「比人賣豬仔」).  Aidan was still confu

sed by our explanation when he asked what it meant.  

Fast forward 5 days later, we arrived in Gjirokaster. After a 20-minute hike up a 20+ degree hill at 37 degrees Celsius with all our backpacks to get to our hostel, we found out that our hostel tried to SMS us to move us to another place due to some situation. Of course, we didn’t have access to our SMS.

We were arranged to another guesthouse in town closer to the Bazaar. The hostel host was actually very genuine and nice, giving us ice-cold water and driving us to the guesthouse they’ve arranged.

On the way to the guesthouse we were arranged to in a super beaten up Jeep.

Despite being taken care of, being arranged an equivalent accommodation with great service, we were still in a situation where we ‘got sold as piglets’ (「比人賣咗豬仔」).

Aidan instantly got it and was able to apply it impeccably.

Waiting for someone to open the door for us to the guest house.

It is a pleasant surprise to be in situations where we can teach the kids authentic Cantonese slang or phrases we never encountered at home. ------

Where does the saying「比人賣豬仔」(' getting sold as piglets’) come from? During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinese people were kidnapped and human trafficked overseas to work as forced labour in gold mines, railways, or plantations. The phrase means being trafficked to do forced labour.