Koohan Paik is a talented independent film/video writer and producer based in Hawaii who has used YouTube very cleverly for political messages about tourism and the environment. Here is a recent video she made on YouTube about “greensumers”.
Ms. Paik says of the character she plays in the YouTube video, Miss Li-ming Mui:
“In the 1950s in Hawaii, us kids would challenge ourselves to pop a li hing mui plum into our mouths and see if we could possibly retain a face free of the reflexive squint and pucker of the unbearably sour/bitter/salty “treat.” They came about seven or eight to a small cellophane sack, and you could roll one from cheek to cheek for the duration of a whole class period. They not only lasted a long time, they were also a symbol of camaraderie; you could always bum one off a friend, and you always had spares to offer others. I think they came from Taiwan.
Does anyone know how to translate li ming hui into English?
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They must have come from Hong Kong — hing and mui are both Cantonese romanisations, not Taiwanese. I’ve never seen it written in characters (and don’t speak Cantonese, only Mandarin), but the “mui” is obviously 梅