I spent last weekend in Zhongshan, birthplace of Sun Yat-sen and the original bastion of Cantonese. Not sure about the numbers but an incredible amount of immigrants to the various gold and hard-work slave-conditions hellholes →
I’m SO glad I can speak Cantonese! Here is one of a million reasons: I just took the MTR from Central to Tung Chung and as usual there were no taxis although it’s about 200 →
I just rediscovered this film when a viewer had a question about the rules. Watching it again, I think it’s actually quite good. And suddenly I’m dying to play cards! Let’s start a cho dai →
Hoi hoi! Everybody everywhere, I can’t say this often enough: When you’re learning Cantonese: Get your course material in order. Something like the folder above, purchased by R, separating the material into categories, clearly labelled. →
The simplified characters menace is growing. Businesses all over Hong Kong are falling over themselves to accommodate mainlanders only, showing in a not very subtle manner that they’re not interested in local customers: by using →
This morning I had a Canto-lesson on my roof (Lantau people: Come to Pui O to learn Cantonese this summer!) and mentioned the word 雀仔(jeuk tsai) -bird. What? my student cried, aghast. Her daughter went →
Working hard on our new film Simply The Worst, a frightening sci-fi look at what happens when the government forces simplified characters on us. So I suddenly remembered the above film about speech-making communist language →
It’s no secret that Hong Kong people are very enthusiastic about fraternising with people from the medical profession at any opportunity. Last night one of my students turned up to the glorious Canto session with →
Last Friday I went to IKEA (pronounced Ee-Keh-Ah by the way) (that’s right, I have a secret direct line to the Swedish language) and as usual said to my client that day: “Wish me luck. →
Hi people! I’m going to take Adventure Trip off my new website as there wasn’t a big market for going into Guangdong province (weird) but the trips still go on, of course. There are so →
Yesterday we finished shooting In A Whorehouse – The Sequel, so soon there will be a brand new Canto extravaganza on YouTube. About time, some would say, as the last one, ‘Romeo and Juliet – →
酒！ Jau! Wine! As they call it. It’s actually a deadly spirit so vile that it should only be used for paint stripping and permanently disfiguring your enemies. Strangely, the (mainland) Chinese drink it with →
The New China Bookshop in Guangzhou, or actually, the New China Bookshop in general, is a real treasure trove. Look what I found there last weekend, a map of Mexico with all the towns and →
Drowning in weather! I got up at 5 having slept very little due to the absolutely wild weather that shook my house all night. Apparently the lightning had struck Lantau Island 3,000 times out of →
Hooray! Almost finished with my Sichuan cookbook called What was it again? Cook, something cook, something Sichuan. Something. Anyway, in it I praise that beer so loved and, amazingly, hated, all over the world: “Tsingtao”. →
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? →
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 →
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 →
We had a brilliant day on Sunday, venturing into the wilderness, sacrificing our safety (there were insects and a dead fish) so that YOU will more easily learn Cantonese, the language that sounds like two →
Our not always easy to understand government seems to be dead set on this incinerator thing. Needing to “spread the pollution around” they want to build a toxin-spewing monster right outside Pui O Beach, assuring →
It’s happening! I’m upgrading this website so you can download films and podcasts. There will be two long videos to begin with, and the above is the ‘for total beginners’ one. One hour and 14 →
I spent the weekend in Shenzhen and it was lovely. As I walked around in the sunshine Sunday morning I suddenly realised why I’ve been so unhappy recently. Well, ISIS, WWIII is coming, all that; no reason to feel upbeat. But also: I haven’t been on a proper mainland trip for so, so long! Day trips really don’t cut it. I have to stay the night, wake up to the smell of street food…
A few months ago I wrote this column in the SCMP about finding the ingredients I need for Sichuan cooking, in Walmart of all places:
Now, unlike some of the more vocal progressives on Facebook, those on whom the irony is lost of their using possibly the most potent symbol of capitalism and the free market ever made, the internet, to rant against capitalism, I have nothing against Walmart. They sell stuff that people want and need relatively cheaply. They employ people. Excellent.
However, every time I’ve had to go there just to get some Sichuan peppercorns and dried chillies, I haven’t been over happy. The shop is underground, shaped like an MTR station, it’s crowded and it takes ages to pay. The stuff is packed in small, overpriced packages.
But yesterday morning, going back to the hotel from Walmart, I suddenly found myself inside a building much closer to the hotel, on street level… it was a huge market bursting with dried chillies, Sichuan peppercorns and everything else the Sichuan-loving heart may desire.
And, needless to say, to half the price of Walmart. The geezer spoke Cantonese (unlike the check-out girls in Walmart) and we had a good old chat! Sometimes things go my way.
辣椒乾 (Lat chiu gon – dried chillies)
花椒 (Fa chiu – Sichuan peppercorns)
南華早報 (Lam wah jou bou – SCMP)
