What is the meaning of "stewed mushrooms" in Cantonese?
Stewing mushrooms means being demoted: a popular saying among police officers is "stewing mushrooms", which means being demoted. For example, if a police officer is a plainclothes detective and suddenly receives an order from his superiors to put on his uniform and be stationed at a certain location, he will be called a "mushroom stew". The term "mushroom stew" originated from the fact that police officers called the hats they wore "mushrooms". The uniforms worn by the early Chinese police officers in Hong Kong were different from those worn today. The Urban Council Bookstore has a set of postcards from the early days of Hong Kong in which there is a photograph of an early Chinese police officer, and if you look at the postcard, you will understand why the police officers' hats were called "mushrooms". The police cap was modeled after the military cap of the Qing Dynasty, which was narrow at the top and broad at the bottom, like an unopened mushroom. The cap was made of woven bamboo sheets, commonly known as the "Bamboo Analysis Cap", and because the cap was shaped like a mushroom, the term "Mushroom Stew" was coined. When a police officer performs well and is conscientious in his work, he will be assigned by his superiors to be a plainclothes detective. A plainclothes detective is a police officer who does not have to wear a uniform, he can wear any clothes to perform his duties. Since he does not wear a uniform, he does not have to wear the mushroom shaped cap, so there is not a single "mushroom" on his head. However, when the plainclothes detective is undisciplined or breaks a rule, his superior considers him unfit to be a plainclothes detective and orders him to put on his uniform, so he has to put on a mushroom-shaped cap on his head, and thus this police officer is called "mushroom stew". Originally, "mushroom stew" only meant the change from a civilian to a uniformed police officer, but it did not mean a reduction in pay scale, only that because plainclothes work was much freer than uniform work, once one was bound to the strict discipline of the uniformed ranks, one would feel demoted. Therefore, anyone who was demoted was said to have been "stewed in mushrooms". This saying was later spread to other professions, which also used the term "stewed mushrooms" to describe demotion.