Hong Kong overflows with just about everything—people, languages, culture—in a minuscule 1,108 sq. km of land. Not counting tourists, it boasts almost 7,000 persons per sq. km, making it the fourth-most densely populated place on the planet. Add in the 58.5 million tourists that came through last year, remind yourself that only 25% of land here has been developed, and the numbers rapidly seem even more stratospheric: Hong Kong is a crowded place.
Now, Chinese cities are famously crowded and sprawling and thick with humanity in motion. (For instance, Beijing’s South Railway Station can move up to 30,000 people per hour.) It’s no wonder, then, that the Chinese idiom 人山人海 (in Jyutping romanization, jan4 shan1 jan4 hoi2), has taken a life of its own here. Literally translated, 人山人海 means “people mountain people sea.” An idiomatic translation would be “crowded; packed; a sea of people.”
But in Hong Kong, where as of 2014 over 95% of permanent residents use slang-inflected Cantonese as their primary language, this idiom has slid into English in its literal form, as what linguists call a “calque.” (Words transit from English to Chinese, and vice versa, in this way somewhat often—think brainwash, lose face, and paper tiger.) People will often weave it directly into their conversations in Cantonese. Worried about the crowds at lunch hour? “People mountain people sea.” Fretting that you won’t get a spot at the beach your friends suggested? “people mountain people sea.” Dreading the Saturday afternoon bustle of whichever concrete-and-linoleum Gucci-lined maze you’re closest to in order to bask in the air conditioning on hot summer days? “People mountain people sea.”
The phrase has also circulated through Hong Kong’s blend of English and Cantonese—called “Kongish” by some—through a 2011 film and a record label that has signed Hong Kong music heavyweights such as Leslie Cheung and Faye Wong.
Despite its total lack of grammaticality, the phrase evokes a clear image, one incredibly apt for those of us currently calling Hong Kong our home. And it does so with a distinctly Hong Kong flair, melding multiple languages into an admixture that evokes both Chinese culture and colonial English legacy.
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