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 →
Is being a Luddite with a Mac an oxymoron? But sometimes I think that’s what I am. Here I am, trying to make Cantonese a world language – in Hong Kong! the very stronghold of →
Cantonese is a war and we’re going to win it. We’ll put the fun AND the mental back into “fundamentalists”! Anyway I have a new and eager recruit here by the name of Ah- … →
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 →
Well, it’s not really a classifier as such, because classifiers are used to classify specific things, as we’ve seen before in for example: 我有兩隻狗，(o yau leung jek gau) – I have two dogs. 0的 (di) →
Okay, it’s official. This Saturday we’re kicking off a character-learning extravaganza like you’ve never seen; the first in a series of two hour workshops where you’ll learn everything you need to set you on the →
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 →
The woman is outside her house (or maybe somebody else’s house, but let’s just presume.) Straight forward, right? You know woman 女人 (leui yan), outside 出邊 (cheut bin) and house 屋企 （uk kei). But as usual, →
Did you know that “Good Friday” is called “Jesus experiences difficulties festival” (耶穌受難節）（ye sou sao laan jit) in Chinese? I bet you didn’t. But now you know, and by going on an Easter trip with →
Come with! Come with!
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 was my one fixed, regular thing in life.
It made going on mainland trips much more interesting than they already were, as I always had a specific purpose: Finding a good story. And photos.
The reason for the chop is that the Sunday Magazine will re-launch in July and can’t find the space for my column anymore. Phew! I’m glad it’s not because the newspaper is now owned by a mainlander and he doesn’t like my writing. That would have been terrible, because in my columns I’ve really endeavoured to make people appreciate mainland China more, which is exactly Jack Ma’s reason for buying the paper, according to that paper.
Sigh.
But onwards and sideways as they say, and now I will concentrate on my two weekly programmes on Radio Lantau, Resident Voices (see above, with local superwoman Zein Williams before she runs off to the top of Lantau Peak – in the rain) and CantoNews
Please listen vigorously!
南華早報 -Lam Wah Jou Bou (South China Early Report/SCMP)
本地 – Buhn dei (Local)
大嶼山電台 – Dai Yu Saan Din Toi (Lantau Radio)
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Learn Cantonese without really trying with Happy Jellyfish Language Bureau's PODCASTS (called outcasts)!
We'll do the hard slog; wading knee-deep through wet-markets, run behind the trains in Guangdong Province, drink all that beer in the seedy underbelly of Gau Long ("Kowloon") and what not, just to enable you to lie back by the pool with your iPod and let the Canto slide effortlessly into your brain. Find us on iTunes
6 May Podcast - Easter on Lantau with Guest-Stars
9th April 2014 Podcast - TRIPPING
7th April 2014 Podcast - Headquarters Honolulu
Click to play or to save, right click and select "Save File As".
Podcast - Like a Kendall in the Wine
Podcast - Traincast
Podcast - Outcast at Annual Against Session
Podcast - A Sojourn in Shenzhen
Cantonese Lessons: Sarah Passmore and Cecilie Gamst Berg. Presented by RTHK.
Click here
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 →
Hello everybody, welcome to my roof! I normally arrange Sichuan dinners and lunches there, but this time it doubled as a recording studio for the best Cantonese news currently available on cassette! (And telex.) Talking →
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 →
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 →