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 →
Here’s a joke that I’d like to share with all Cantonese speakers/learners – well, not all. It only works if you’re caucasian. In Norway we have a saying: Beloved child has many names. So it →
Hallo, hallo, everybody everywhere. My new book is finally being published and you are invited to the launch. As well as beer and books for sale, there is also my new DVD ‘Going Native’ which →
This is 54 seconds of our three week trip. More later in the documentary you can download from this site!
Camels, what’s not to like? They are haughty but kindly, patient but laconic. They understand human nature, then spit on it. In Dunhuang, an oasis town between the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts, there are camels →
This is probably my favourite spot in all of China – apart from the Lo Wu Shopping Center of course. It’s Jiayuguan Fort far into Gansu province and is said to be the end of →
Not far from Lanzhou, transport and travel hub of the north, is the small town of Xiahe, dominated by the large and imposing Labrang Monastery. Last time I went there the main drag (the only →
Despite the charms of the Chinese train and that to travel hopefully (and painfully) is better than … not at all, it’s always good to arrive when the destination is beautiful Lanzhou. It’s the most →
.. an old podcast: A Sojourn in Shenzhen. Yes, one whole person has expressed interest in hearing it, so I must oblige. Also I happen to be going to Shenzhen again tomorrow as part of →
Yes, soon you’ll be able to download more than three hours of Canto magic from this very site!I met my computer expert friend yesterday behind the third toilet from the left, and handed over the →
Hi Cecilie,
I'd like to start learning to learn Chinese characters. What I need is a sort of crash course perhaps. Something that helps me start. It's ridiculous not to be able to read the language. I don't know how long I'll stay in Hong Kong, but it's starting to be unbearable not to know.
I'll be slightly less busy with work between 10th May and the end of June before it all starts again in August. So I'll have between 7 and 10 Monday or Tuesday afternoons/evenings free, starting in two weeks’ time. I can find some free time between 4:30 and any time in the evening.
I'd be happy to join a group if there isn’t too big a gap in levels, or take one-to-one lessons since it'd only be for a short period of time.
Let me know if it’d be possible, when, for how much etc.
Have a good day,
Elise (Ah Lei)
See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?
No, actually, recently I’ve had a few victims (students) who want to learn the characters, and quite rightly too! What other language in the world do people start learning without having a clue about how to read and write it?
So maybe you’ve taken lessons before, the first lesson starting with the teacher saying something like: “So now you’re going to learn Cantonese it’s just a street language completely useless you should learn Mandarin instead and anyway you’ll never learn to read and write it it’s too difficult for you.”
What other language will you find a dictionary that has only the sound of the words, not how to write them? Insane? Welcome to the world of Canto.
But people, reading and writing really is a piece of cake. And now you can join the above Elise, lovely French girl, in learning Chinese characters. two crash courses of 2 hours each. That’s all you need, I promise. Wanna?
I’ve had several students who felt they were lagging behind, not making progress, not being able to speak and understand as well as they wanted to and turning into nervous wrecks when faced with Chinese people addressing them in Canto.
A few weeks of Chinese characters and: Wallop! New confidence, great strides in comprehension and speaking ability and: Can find their way around on the mainland as well as in Japan and to a certain degree South Korea.
Four hours is all it takes! Then, if you don’t like it, you can just stop.
But you will like it.
There is something about the internet that brings out the worst in people, like road rage. But also, of course, the best. People become so kind on behalf of others, on the internet. Last week, it was Mandarin that was hotly defended on my Facebook wall. I had written that Mandarin was an imperialist(ic) shit-language, and I stand by that description. Everywhere the Mandorinians invade go, they expect, nay, demand, that the local people learn their language, instead of the other way around.
If that’s not imperialist, I don’t know what is. For this I was immediately set upon by one of the kind defenders of everything so frequently found here on the internet.
“You can’t just call something shit!” she cried, as if Mandarin was a handicapped child actor or something.
“It’s not professional!” Yes, all right.
“I will no longer avail myself of the free educational podcasts you’ve put up on the internet!” Okay, a terrible threat. But still. It is a shit language.
I just didn’t have the time to explain why, but it’s quite clever and not a little deep, I think. A few months ago I put out a film called Big Brother Knows Best,
about how, when Mandarin takes over the world, there will be only one word and it is shi. One of the words pronounced SHI is of course 屎 shit. So I might as well have said it was a NEED 駛 language, a WET 濕 language, a LOSE 失 language or an EAT 食 language， or one of a thousand other words pronounced SHI. I just chose the word ‘shit’ randomly.
Incidentally, those words have five different pronunciations in Cantonese, namely si, sai, sap, sat and sek. Which makes Cantonese SO much easier to understand.
But really, I don’t think Facebook is the place to explain absolutely everything I do and think, do you?
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 →
I’ve just come back from a rather brilliant yam cha at Holly Restaurant in 東涌 (“Tung” [Dung] Chung), followed by shopping for tomorrow’s Dinner For Spares. (Yes I’ve started a new scheme: Come as you →
FINALLY! I had had absolutely no yam cha (afternoon tea and dim sum) since September 14 and was starting to see double. Although I had plenty of deep-fried, comforting Southern food on my blaze-through of →
People! I can’t recommend Newark Airport enough! A mere 20 minute drive from downtown Manhattan, (or 12 hours’ drive from Shaker Village Kentucky as the case may be) is this place where, unlike JFK and →
I can’t believe I’m home again! The two weeks in Mexico and the US seemed like two months because there was so much happening, and everything mine eyes looked upon I saw for the first →
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! This is even better than I had envisaged. It feels indescribably good to walk on cobblestoned streets knowing that the same houses were here 200 years ago. I can’t remember the →
Thank you for not being an arse? That was my first reaction. Then I thought: That doesn’t make sense. Why would someone put a sign saying Thank you for not being an arse on their →
How long does it take to make and edit a 10 minute film? The answer is: Two years and eight months. Not bad!
Woo-hooo, after weeks, months and SO much hassle with the company I paid to reformat and spread my book (it’s now just in pdf exactly like the format I sent them and I had to →
I’m so afraid of the dentist, I go every four months. That sounds like a contradiction and a half, but it’s true. Going every four months gives me peace of mind and no cavities. (Also, →
Last night I had a wonderful time in Central with my friend formerly known as J. Yes, I said ‘formerly’! For that was her name in the many South China Morning Post columns she appeared →
The debate about Canto rages on. Now mainland officials are weighing in, in an about-turn saying the government would “release a policy outline and new regulations to boost Cantonese cultural heritage.” So it’s all over →
