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The other day one of my students created a brilliant slogan. I was telling her about how local Chinese people think all Caucasians are complete idiots who can’t read numbers, don’t know what milk is (according to the podcast below, ElleX stood in front of the dairy section at her local supermarket wondering what to buy, when a helpful employee popped up at her elbow saying: This. Is. M-I-L-K.) and generally need help and advice to walk across a floor to reach an exit.
They are amazed and falling over themselves if you can utter 早晨，(jo san, morning) let alone string a whole sentence like 廁所喺邊度 (chi soh hai bin dou, where is the toilet) together.
So why do you have to be your normal age and native language abilities or nothing, when you speak Cantonese? Can’t you just BE THE GWAI? A total idiot from whom no one expects any brain activity at all? That way, even if you know three sentences or 52 random words in Cantonese, you’ll be treated like a mega-star and the most intelligent specimen in the world.
Be the 鬼！ It’s extremely liberating. Just ask any inmate in a loony bin.
So learn Cantonese this year! If you don’t have time to take lessons you can buy the entire language in two handy DVDs right here at this site:
What do cows do when a typhoon signal 8 is raging, I wonder? T8: 八號風球(baat hou fung kao – 8 number wind ball) The scourge of Lantau. Not! As usual, the weather bureau says we’re →
This is one of the reasons why I love Cantonese: 咩! (Meeh, wot? or what kind of…) My theory: It started out as 乜嘢 (mat yeh, what thing. As in: 你飲乜嘢呀？Lei yam mat yeh ah? →
A sad day in the country club today! My banjo teacher, Austin, （亞天，Ah-Tin) came for his last Cantonese lesson/to provide banjo lesson. We recorded the instrumental to our next Cantonese Bluegrass music video (don’t know →
Summer has come to Pui O beach and with it a slew of … I think they call them ‘pseudo-models’? and their entourages of dozens of photographers and light-reflector-holders, all men, for some reason. Referring →
Cantonese 101: There is no yes and no! This can create confusion. Of course, many people want there to be a yes (at least) and so they have created a thing where 係 (hai) means →
I discovered a new Canto word this week! And I won’t forget it, because I learnt it in a situation and from a live person, not a dictionary or app. So I do this Sichuan →
I remember when I first came to hong Kong in 1989. The 垃圾蟲 (lap sap chung, litter bug) campaign had just started. Now people would be made to feel bad about littering. Woo-hoo! Nothing seemed →
It’s difficult for me when holidays suddenly pop up in the middle of the week. Yesterday I felt it was Sunday （禮拜日，lai bai yat) all day although it was Wednesday (禮拜三 lai bai saam), and →
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 wei everybody, wei! After a long absence caused by circumstances beyond my control, I’m now itching to write again. And what could be better than to start with something written by somebody else? Yep, →
Do you live in Hong Kong? Have you lived here for a number of years? (Any number higher than, say, one?) Then you must already be starting to get sick of people leaving. Now it’s →
Woo-hooo! WE did that! the happy cooks A, K and D are beaming, so pleased with themselves after studying Sichuan cooking for only two hours. (Chuanxing village spicy potato cake) Now you can also learn →
People are busy and don’t always have time to commit to one or two hours of studying Cantonese every week. But does that mean you can’t learn Cantonese? NO! With Happy Jellyfish Language Bureau’s many →
Everyone who travels in China for more than, say, five minutes, has something to say about her toilets. But I stand by my column (above) – they are nothing! Nothing, compared to only a few →
