Dear All,
With the widespread popularity of SMS messages;
This year, many of us I believe have sent SMS Greetings more so than other years!
Besides receiving picture greetings and standard SMS Gong Xi Fa Cai greetings, I was really, really impressed with this Hokkien greetings:-
So, if you like to impress your Hokkien friends (erh... make sure that you know your friends are Hokkien or at least Teochews or at least knows or understand Hokkien); why not keep in mind this lovely SMS... for next year? This message has a splatter of Hokkien and Mandarin.
Here goes:
START OF SMS:-
"Dear Thee Kong, Pls poh bi all my friends pinpin angang, soonsoon lili duing this coming 2004. Kam Xia. Best wishes from (your name)"
--------- END OF SMS -----------
Rough translation of above message: Dear (Thee Kong) Heaven, Please pray for a good year all my friends: (pinpin angang) safe and (soonsoon lili) smooth year ahead for 2004. (Kam Xia) Thank you. Best Wishes from (your name)."
Well, Chinese New Year is not over yet! So, why not impress your Hokkien friends with this message!
Cheers!
Cecil Lee

In addition to my previous remarks, this message should be easily comprehensible to most Singaporean Chinese, with Hokkien being the predominant Chinese community. Teochews are also likely to grasp this message without difficulty.

If you were to send it to a Taiwanese friend, it is generally acceptable, as most Taiwanese are either Hokkiens or have been raised with this language.

However, if you send it to a friend from Hong Kong, it may not be as easily understood, since the majority of the Chinese dialect group there is Cantonese.

Warmest Regards,
Cecil