So it’s the private companies that will be driving the communist hieroglyph takeover? Last week it was Hang Seng bank, now it’s HSBC itself. HSBC – isn’t that a British bank? A few years ago →
Just because I’m a Cantonese fundamentalist and don’t want Hong Kong to be taken over by Mandohooligans, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel a huge pull from the wild almost daily. Yes, I’m talking about →
No, not the city Honolulu where I’ve never been. The phenomenon Honolulu! Nestled between a parking house and some building, probably a hole in the ground pounded by pile drivers by now, lies 33 Stanley →
Happy Sunday! Now, I like to dress up as much as the next man, whoever he is. But recently I haven’t made any films (my film camera sadly died in Mexico and I don’t want →
Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau: The only Cantonese course in town where the tea cups match your outfit Why learn Cantonese? 1. It’s FUN! 2. It’s the local language of Hong Kong and it’s →
The last few days I’ve been trying to catalogue my films. When I say “trying to catalogue” I mean “watching Breaking Bad to get ideas for angles, film techniques etc”. Breaking Bad – it’s really →
A highlight of my recent trip to the USA was visiting a bourbon distillery. A lowlight, or, shall we say, nadir, was getting drunk on bourbon the week before. It was so good to see →
I wish there were a proper Sichuan restaurant in sleepy backwater Pui O – or even Cheung Sha or Mui Wo. I’d go every day. One thing I’ve discovered about Sichuan food on my many →
Sometimes you (or some people) do things only because it feels so good when you stop. Bashing your head against a wall is one of those things. Moon Trekker (running around or across or round →
Although I may seem like a Luddite with my Nokia and my stubborn insistence of having tangible, physical CDs and DVDs, I actually love technology. The whole internet thing; reaching people all over the world and be screamed at by them for not being a 70s radical – great! When I first started teaching Cantonese back in the early 90s I remember drawing the course material by hand and then going to Central to have it copied in a copy shop by a professional copier. Wild times!
I still draw the course by hand but now I scan it, edit it in Paint for Mac and print it out on a super, Canon colour printer that prints photos so beautifully they are like the printed photos of yore. The ones, remember, that you had to have printed in a photoshop that wasn’t in your house? From a film in a canister?
And how about all the people with similar interests that you can meet on Facebook while being abused by people who disagree with you politically? And how about Skype?!? I remember when it was too expensive to call someone who lived in a different part of the country, let alone the world!
This morning I had a skype lesson with a guy in the USA, so it was night for him. He had just had a baby, seven days old today, who I could hear and see thanks to the wonderful invention that is Skype. Thank you, smart and wonderful people who have made all this possible.
So now you can live anywhere in the world and still have ‘live’ Cantonese lessons on skype! You’ll thank yourself for it later.
電腦 (din lou – electric brain/computer)
美國 (Mei Gok – Beautiful Country/USA)
影印機 (yeng yan gei – copy machine)
Today: Switzerland 瑞士 Soi si
The other day I made a list of the ten most important reasons, off the top of my head, to learn Cantonese. Yesterday I found another one.
I am a Luddite whose phone, a Nokia from 2006, is made of wood, so naturally I like to have real CDs in the house (now that cassettes have been so brutally discontinued) rather than downloading, uploading, cloud, iTunes, whatever. But what happened to my dear shop HMV? It no longer sells music! Only fluffy toys, video games and food.
So yesterday I went into a shop in IFC that I’ve seen many times without realising what was in it – many CD-like objects. But were they only Hollywood blockbusters? I asked the guy if they had any music and he showed me a shelf sagging under what looked like dismal muzak; fake covers showing birch trees at sunset, very 70s, hammond-organ and accordion-related, cover versions of Boney M. Not even I can listen to crap music ironically.Then I turned around and: There was shelf upon shelf of good old mainstream music! From Laurie Anderson to Yazoo, from Beach Boys to Zeppelin. Real, tangible CDs to put in a shelf.
I asked the guy why he hadn’t shown me those shelves at once and he said “you asked for music“. “What, isn’t this music?” I asked, pointing to Rod Stewart or whatever. “No, they are songs. Music is only instruments.”
Heh! Learn something new every day! That’s another reason to learn Cantonese, I think.
音樂 (yam uk – music)
歌 (go – song)
唱歌 (cheung go – singing)
