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!
Today I wanted to write a well-researched rant about Cantonese NOT being a dialect, a kind of sub-division, an inferior sub-division, of Mandarin. But I have to cook for 13 in a couple of hours, →
Last night I shared a taxi from Tung Chung – oh how it pains me to spell it that way when it’s pronounced DUNG Chung – with a boy and his domestic helper. I noticed →
Yesterday I wrote about a guide to recognise white-to-coloured racism or “microaggression,[] the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional(my italics), that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to →
I have in my hand (and when I say hand I mean computer screen) an extraordinary document entitled “Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send”. Reading through the list, I’m damned glad to be →
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; →
Here is one of my students – let’s call him X-tor. Like so many he succumbed to “MOvember,” the terrible annual male uglification-fest where guys deliberately mutilate their faces to get people to give them →
Life is funny eh? You think you know something or at least are fairly familiar with something, and then something happens that sends your whole world view tumbling to the ground. Me, I thought I →
Here is a thoroughly kind, cheerful and people-loving dog called Rascal, 3. The name is misleading because he’s not alpha or naughty. He’s also not fearful. I’ve known him ever since his owner adopted him →
Yesterday I dragged myself up Lantau Peak to scatter the ashes of a dear friend who died in April. It really made me admire even more those brave souls who participated in the Moontrekker thing →
Ha ha! I laughed bitterly yesterday when I had to go to FUSION to buy some toilet paper or whatever. I remember when the melody in the story above irritated me. And not only me, →
First of all: Please buy my latest book and second: You’ll never guess where I ended up this week! HKTDC!!! Which I have no idea what stands for. Some magazine. The article is quite sympathetic →
It seems that no one has thought about the deep and intimate connection between the Cantonese language and bluegrass. I wonder why. Well, from now on you’ll be able to groove along to bluegrassy Canto-tunes, →
Easter was wonderful this year. Good weather and a new restaurant opened on Pui O Beach, the beer was flowing and my recording device was working overtime!
I think this poddie castie deserves another hear. Kendall is one of the early fans of Naked Cantonese and it’s always fun to visit fans on their stomping grounds.
Yam Chaaaaaa! I go to Shenzhen with two victims, one of whom is a real Glaswegian! I’ve always said that Cantonese is the Glaswegian of Asia. A good fighting language, etc. But far from fighting, →
Last Saturday Mister Public Security Uncle took a trip to Wan Chai to join in the rugby revelling and cavorting, as well as spreading the word of Canto. Fun much? I have always laughed (in →
Recently I’ve been down with a quite incredibly awful flu! Forget about swine and bird, this was a total shark flu. The worst thing is its impact on the brain. I forgot where I lived, →
Filming a new episode of Cantonese - The Movie in you know where!
So this plan of mine to eat my way through all the Chinese restaurants in the USA is kind of almost working out. A little. I think I'll be able to do about 90%, including →
Yes, that Public Security Uncle, he does get around a bit. Unfortunately an unfathomable tragedy happened: He lost his badge in a shrubbery incident just outside Santa Fe. Good thing he had his trusty deputy →
It’s a while ago now but I suddenly remembered I spent a month in the USA this summer, doing the Canto thing of course:
