" />
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 going to have a direct hit. Even seven hours ago when this typhoon was just a gleam in the raincoat-covered TVB reporter’s eye, all kindergartens closed. Come ON! What’s wrong with Hong Kong? When did we become so damned weak? One would think drops of water were acid the way the government carries on. The kindergartens closed at 8:30am. Now it’s 4:17pm and still no rain.
Anyway, in Cantonese, typhoon is a verb. 打風， (da fung – hitting or striking wind). I used to think the word typhoon came from 打風, but no. It’s actually 颱風,(toi fung, typhoon wind). But that’s not much used, it’s normally 哎呀，今日會打風呀！ (ai ah, gamyat wui da fung ah! Oh dear, today will hit wind ah!)
If you survive the onslaught, why not take a Cantonese course this year? You’ll never be short of weather expressions again!
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 →
Look at this photo. Dawn, right? Just starting to get light? Wrong. It’s my camera that’s so great, it can take photos even when it’s too dark for the human eye to see anything, and →
Last month I went to Hunan province and after a few minutes there was overcome with shark flu (or some other fierce animal) – awful. Just awful. Anyway, so today, instead of advising you on →
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 →
This week my first specialised crash course kicked off, with two excellent and fast learners, working titles ah-Lei and ah-Ga. In only two and a half hours, they learnt enough Cantonese to go into any →
Here is an article I wrote about one of my favourite books: Gone With the Wind. What does it have to do with Cantonese? Hmmm… not much. Nothing really. Except we’re the Southerners being overrun →
Chinese characters (normal, not simplified) are beautiful, aren’t they? Even ordinary words like ‘toilet’ look somehow elevated to a higher sphere when they’re written with a brush, or printed for that matter. Not that the →
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 →
