Wei wei, it’s finally happening: I’m launching my new book Don’t Joke On The Stairs on Blacksmith Books this week. I actually wrote most of it four years ago and had signed a contract with South China Morning Post Publishing House when that venerable institution suddenly packed it in two weeks before the book was to be published. Vexed? How could I be, when they in the mass email they sent out to all the authors saying breezily that they wouldn’t print any more books, added: “But you are allowed to keep your script.” Oh really!
Well, that what seemed at the time major setback was of course a blessing in disguise, because it allowed me to have some more bizarre, surreal and semi-wild experiences in China to squeeze into the book. In it, you will find out
How to gate-crash a Ketamine party
Why China and Norway are almost identical
What “the slippery are very crafty” really means
How to get around China by train, sleeper bus, horse and camel while staying in the worst hotels because you’re a Hong Kong compatriot
What to write in a self-criticism when you get arrested for spying
How to get into North Korea without a visa
How to hitchhike around the entire country and the etiquette of hitchhiking in China
Don’t Joke On The Stairs is also full of helpful hints when it comes to language learning, as well as containing a useful travel glossary with Chinese characters and their pronunciations in Cantonese and Mandarin. And photos! I mean – what?
So I hope you can swing around the old Honolulu in Stanley street on Thursday night. If you don’t speak Cantonese already, I will teach you the basics. I will also launch my new Canto-teaching DVD Going Native, a two hour extravaganza of film which will take you not only all around China but the world! while learning Cantonese. Oh yeah, Canto will rule the world. But the other languages will be allowed to live too!
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 →
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 →
Saturday night! What a brilliant night. Above is the table just before the hordes (12 people) started pouring in. I hosted, cooked Sichuan food for and expressed my life through the medium of dance (optional) →
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 →
When I started learning Cantonese there was no shortage of Chinese people warning me against it. At that time the most common refrain was: “It’s too difficult – for you“. OK, maybe they didn’t emphasise →
There are as many types of Chinese food as there are people in China; approximately 1.3 billion different dishes at last count. That's more dishes than you and I go through in an average month! →
The shooting of new, from-scratch Cantonese course CantoNews continues. This time we went to a thrilling location, the luscious OYC Hotel in 肇慶 (Siu Heng) in Guangdong province, a mere four hours’ comfortable train journey →
Here is an excellent way to practise and learn more Cantonese: Going to the market with your very own Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau. This is how it works: First we sit down with →
Am I the only one who thinks there are too many holidays in Hong Kong? I feel I’ve just come back from my Christmas trip – BOOM! Another big holiday immediately heaves into view. I →
If you’re unfortunate enough to live outside Hong Kong and can’t take Cantonese lessons from, er, moi, there’s no need to despair! Now you can have a mini-Cantonese fundamentalist right in your living room. Fun, →
Here’s a gaff in my favourite village in all of China, Chuanxing 川興 (Chuen Heng) near famous satellite centre Xichang 西昌 (Sai Cheung) where the moon is rounder and brighter than in the rest of →
It’s Sunday morning and I just finished doing the dishes from yesterday’s Sichuan food blowout extravaganza wonder party. Chilli oil tastes wonderful but is a bugger to get off plates and worktops. But it’s worth →
