My heart didn’t stop exactly, but I had to swallow hard a couple of times last night when I read the Sunday Times from June 12 (carried around in my handbag unread for two weeks) →
As I was looking through my old columns from South China Morning Post trying to get some other newspaper gigs (do newspapers even exist anymore?) I found the above story from Norway. Allowed only 450 →
Listen to the interview with famous Lantau author Jane Huong who isn’t Vietnamese or Malaysian, but married to a Hong Kong guy who wanted to spell his surname (Hung) differently from the herd. And talking →
Nick (a.k.a. Cassette) and I go to an Italian restaurant in the throbbing metropolis of Mui Wo, centre of the universe and make a programme about lots of interesting things – specifically the idiotic spelling →
Yesterday I had an email from a … person, who said: “I sobbed vehemently when I saw your last Sunday Morning Post entry had come and gone.” Me too, mate, me too. Except I didn’t →
July 1st! July 1st! That day in year zero for Hong Kong, 1997, it was rather wet. OK, it torrentially bucketed down for about three weeks before and after that momentous day. Coincidence? I think →
Here is an interview I did for Radio Lantau a couple of weeks ago, with Edward Bunker from Mui Wo. Every single person I told this to said the same: “Oh, he’s lovely!” Not a →
Can you learn Cantonese from a book? I would say no, not least because of the crazy spelling that bear little or no resemblance to the sound of the words. Can you indeed learn any →
It’s so much fun to have friends visiting Hong Kong, especially when the day they arrive kicks off a week of unprecedented beautiful weather! I shouldn’t say unprecedented; the weather was probably like this every →
I’m just about to write my last column ever for South China Morning Post; ever! When I was told the page would be discontinued, I was so sad. How now would I be able to →
Finally it’s here (maybe you didn’t even know that it was going to be here???) – the second installment of Cantonese – The Movie. This DVD, all two hours of it, is for people who →
A couple of weeks ago I interviewed the beautiful and delightful Zein Williams, mother of three and tireless champion for the Nepali people about her life and work – with the earthquake victims especially – →
Oh Cassette! Two weeks ago we went up to Guangzhou to see him live in his stand-up glory at a place called… Panda something? No! Paddyfield, an Irish pub right behind the Garden Hotel. Cassette →
Above: BEFORE. Halcyon days of yore, etc. A part of the interlinked Pui O wetlands in 2012. A lovely, lush vista scattered with grazing water buffalo, egrets, starlings and other creatures, even fish have seen →
IMPORTANT!!! When you click on the link, scroll down to the alphabetical archive and click on C. Then you’ll see both my programmes. This isn’t strictly about Cantonese and it certainly isn’t about me, but →
All good things come to an end, apparently. Even life! Yes, compared to dying, losing a twice-monthly column in an increasingly obscure Asian newspaper is certainly a small thing. But oh! I loved that column. →
It’s up and running on Radio Lantau – CantoNews 2! The sequel! No, just the second programme in Cecilie and Nick’s Cantonese course, the finest course currently available on cassette. http://radiolantau.com/programme-archive/cantonews/C/7-cecilie-gamst-berg/4-cantonews/60-cantonews-2 This time we discuss →
I must write about Lantau again, because yesterday I interviewed Merrin Pearse, the leader of LIM (Living Islands Movement) whose introduction to the government’s “vision” for Lantau’s and therefore the people of Hong Kong’s future →
Saturday night my house was flooded with what at first glance looked like supermodels. 15 young people in their twenties and early thirties stampeded in to have a Sichuan meal, carefully cooked with the finest →
Last Friday I was so happy, because I had a trip to Shenzhen all lined up. Probably only a day trip, but still! Shenzhen is Shenzhen. Sichuan food, having some shirts made and foot massage. →
The mainland is all well and good, in fact better than well and certainly better than good, but there other countries around here. Japan for example. Not that this tiny island that’s much closer to →
Woo-hoo, woo-hoo! July 1st, the day of Hong Kong’s rebirth! I think it’s so kind of the mainland to accept us back in the fold after all the horrible things we have said and done →
Today I want to publicly thank a Norwegian writer named Are Kalvø who in the year 2007 had a brilliant idea which inspired me no end. He would travel all around Norway and eat in →
WEI! Everybody everywhere! I’m off to the motherland for a long but not long enough weekend, to make programmes about … oh, I can’t talk about it. OK, Mandarin. Anyway, when I get back next →
Why this photo? Found it and liked it again, innit. Anyway, the other day one of my students suggested that I set up some kind of counting device; you know, something like the count-down to →
Last Saturday I started a new thing: Learn everything about Chinese characters in two hours. Ten people turned up, and when they staggered out of the venerable Honolulu Coffee Shop two hours and fifteen minutes →
Hi people. Sorry about the delay. Delay no more! Yesterday the following delightful email clattered down into my inbox: Hi Cecilie, I'd like to start learning to learn Chinese characters. What I need is a →
This is ah-Fa, one of my long-term Cantonese students. You see that piece of paper she’s reading? I wrote that the same morning and emailed it to her. Out of all those Chinese characters, there →
When the communists, soon after they came to power in 1949, introduced simplified Chinese characters, it was ostensibly to reduce illiteracy on the mainland. However, their real objective was to enable peasants and other illiterates →
