Taishanese Phrases: 30 Things to Say to Your Wuyi Relatives Why These Taishanese Phrases Aren't Pinyin For roughly a century, Taishanese (台山话, Táishān huà — the diaspora spells it Hoisan or Toisan) was the working language of North American Chinatown: not Mandarin, and not the Cantonese of the phrasebooks. It was the speech of laundries…