Atemoyas & Cherimoyas
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 11:59PM 
Atemoya vs CherimoyaAtemoya season is here again. Don't forget to share with a friend.
If you don't remember the difference between slightly sour atemoyas (fenqli shyhjia) and their cloyingly sweet relative, cherimoyas (shyhjia), here is a mnemonic:
Atemoyas are slightly pointy on top, like a capital letter "A"
Cherimoyas are more rounded, like a capital letter "C"
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Atemoyas were also mentioned on this blog in January (www.hictw.org/taiwan-expatriate-food-blog/2008/1/14/atemoya-season.html)
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Hong Kong people often use less than complimentary language to refer to foreigners: 老番loufan ("barbarians") is a very common expression. Latent racism is probably also responsible for at least one imported fruit name. In Cantonese, cherimoyas are called fan laiji 番荔枝 (literally "Barbarian" lychee). This is presumably a reference to their ugly green appearance, in contrast to "proper" lychees, dainty fruit whose delicate red exterior is much more attractive.
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Notes:
1] I have only studied a little Cantonese, so I am using what I remember of Barnett-Chao romanization (tonal spelling for Cantonese, based on Gwoyeu Romatzyh/National Romanization). Before a vowel, r = low pitch and h = high pitch; After a vowel, r = rising and h = falling.
Fan laiji is probably (my Cantonese reference books are not available) spelled fann lrai-ji: The tones are [HIGH] [LOW]-[HIGH]
Loufan is probably spelled lourfann
2] Fan used in older Mandarin words such as fanchye (tomato) and fanshyrliou (guava) has no derogatory meaning