"Salty Pig Hand" (Hum ju sow)

I'm sure most of us have come across terms like "cheekopek" or "hum sup" (meaning 'lecher' in Hokkien & Cantonese) before, but in recent months, I've been hearing more and more of the Cantonese term, "hum ju sow", which literally means 'salty pig hands'. This site gives a translation: "A 'salty pig's hand' = Describing men touching women in an inappropriate way."

So while a 'hum sup loh' refers to a lecherous man, 'hum ju sow' refers to a more specific act of indecency.

But so far, none of my Cantonese speaking friends and colleagues were able to tell me about the origins of this phrase. My colleague WP hazarded a guess that it probably originated from a time when pigs were cured with salt to make preserved meat, and one probably had to rub the pork with salt using one's hands.... so when someone has 'salty pig's hands', he tends to 'rubba, rubba'. :-)

Anyone has a better explanation about the origins of this phrase?


On to part 2...