Although it’s written in simplified characters: Cool! As! Bro! 涼！ The Cantonese language is under threat, and people all over Hong Kong and Southern China are banding together to show those Mando imperialists that not →
It is with great sadness I must inform our irate but faithful listeners that Poddie Castie number 200 is soon coming up, and that it will herald →
Hoi hoi, it’s that time of year again when I look in my diary/calendar and re-remember what Good Friday is in Chinese: 耶穌受難節： Jesus experiences difficulties-festival. (Yeso sau laan jit.) Oh what joy. And really →
Wei, wei, are you doing anything this Saturday? Or: Are you doing lots of things but have two hours free to learn Cantonese in the afternoon? Join Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau’s YAM CHA →
This week was my third week of Russian lessons, and although the teacher insists stubbornly on talking about Anna who is a ballerina and Anna and Maria being ballerini, I’ve decided to practise what I →
I learnt a new verb today. A taxi driver asked me “有冇 搶香蕉呀？" Yau mou cheung heung chiu ah? (something like that) – Have you CHEUNG bananas? I thought it meant ‘hoard’ but arriving at →
Yesterday we did a live show on RTHK with ah-Sa shivering with fear as usual – what would I say this time? Last time I said “screw you” about the evil students castigating our dear →
That’s right, to sympathise with my clients’ plight and understand once again what it is to learn a language from scratch, I’ve decided to learn Russian. That and the fact that I’m going to Kazakhstan →
You know, you don’t have to commit to a whole awful hour a week. No, you can take Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau’s three hour crash course! Perhaps even a crash course sounds too →
套， mainly classifier for films, as in － 套戲，yat tou hei – a ‘wrapper'(?) of film. Possibly from when films came in big metal cases. By the way, the origin of 戲 hei is ‘Chinese →
With this game I thee wed, I say! With three people, a packet of cards and some kind of flat surface there will be no more boring nights for you. (NB! Can also be played →
Here is G with some lovely ha gau and another gau, ordered from the Chinese menu by him.
Now you can also learn to navigate a Chinese menu with impunity! This Saturday, November 10th, I’m doing a crash-course in menu reading.
You will learn to recognise the major food groups and how to look up characters in the dictionary. Have a favourite dish but don’t know how to say it in Cantonese, let alone find it on the menu? After Saturday, that will be a thing of the past.
1:30 at Discovery Forest which is on top of Pier 3 (the Discovery Bay ferry pier) in Central. I will tell you the price when I know how many people are coming. Course material included.
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 →
This never happens: A former senior town planner with the Hong Kong government has suggested getting rid of a Hong Kong icon! So novel; where do they get these ideas from? This time it’s the →
everybody knows that. But how about beer, then wine, (Moet Et Chandon, saved since June 7th, thank you Teng and Lok!) then beer, then more beer and some beer? Queer is not a good →
Last night I started watching the third season of Orange Is The New Black, an American show about life in a women’s prison. The first two seasons were pretty riveting in a ‘far too many →
This morning I had some people from my village coming over for a dose of Cantonese, and since it was raining dog shit (落狗屎 – lok gau si [raining heavily]) we discussed the weather, well, →
You can’t see it yet but my website is being refurbished. The first thing I want to change is the cover of the Cantonese teaching videos Cantonese – The Movie and Going Native (see above). →
(Of course the phone the geezer in the photo isn’t talking on a Nokia while… resting? but it’s definitely some kind of phone.) But Nokia: Yesterday a guy driving through Pui O gave me a →
Last night I went to a party that turned into something of a name-dropping fest. People had met Lady Gaga, various representatives of the Hong kong government, etc. I thought: Lady Gaga has a job →
In all the (sad lack of) hullaballooooo about publishing my latest book online, I completely forgot I have published two books before. For the Cantonese learner and perhaps other people interested in China, Don’t Joke →
I just thought I’d get in some product placement before lunchtime! To which you’d probably respond: 你有冇攪錯呀！(Lei yau mou gaau cho ah – you must be joking!) That’s right, there is no ‘have’ or ‘not →
