Here is my victim ah-Dak holding forth for a captive audience in a backstreet in Guangzhou. It moved my FUNdaMENTAList heart, I can tell you that. I was especially chuffed to hear him say (about →
The woman is outside her house (or maybe somebody else’s house, but let’s just presume.) Straight forward, right? You know woman 女人 (leui yan), outside 出邊 (cheut bin) and house 屋企 （uk kei). But as usual, →
Dear chaps. In our series “screams and muffled cries from the vault” we bring you another item from our archives. It explains why, when you speak to a HK person in Cantonese, he answers you →
Perhaps you’ve made some new year resolutions this year, and broken them already. Here is one that won’t hurt, but on the contrary will enrich you no end for the decades to come: Decide that →
A sad day in the country club today! My banjo teacher, Austin, （亞天，Ah-Tin) came for his last Cantonese lesson/to provide banjo lesson. We recorded the instrumental to our next Cantonese Bluegrass music video (don’t know what the song will be about yet – any suggestions?) and talked about when he was leaving. He said 三個日(saam goh yat, Three Pieces of Days).
Yeah, isn’t it typical! This happens to all students of Cantonese I think. When you finally get your head around the classifier 個 (goh, meaning ‘piece of, item of’) and can use it with ease and confidence 我有兩個香港朋友 (O yau leung gah Heung Gong pangyau – I have two HK friends) 俾六個杯我呀，唔該 (bei luk goh goi o ah, m goi, give me six glasses please) – suddenly there are these nouns that don’t have classifiers!
Primarily 日 (yat, day) and 年(lin, year). So unfair, but there you are.
The funny thing is, it’s the second Petrashune I lose in one year! (一年， yat lin). Is that carelessness or what? His older brother Adam was my banjo teacher before, before he had the crazy idea of going to the USA for good.
Last jam with Austin! That’s also unfair. Oh well, at least I have the video:
I think one of my biggest weaknesses is my temper, or rather that I sometimes can’t control it. I specifically blow my top at government officials and other puffed-up people in uniform, telling me what →
Last weekend a group of three ecstatic revellers hopped on the ferry to Jung Saan (Zhongshan) and got straight in a taxi at the ferry pier and darted into the hinterland. In the lovely, slightly →
Guangdong is the best province in China, and not because of Cantonese! It’s got the friendliest people and the best hovelage. And today I’m off to savour her charms again! I just thought I’d share →
What does this photo of an excellent and ridiculously inexpensive haircut have to do with CantoNews? Nothing! I just like it. In this segment, the venerable Cassette and I visit the Garden Cafe in Pui →
I always have a good time in Shenzhen’s famed Lo Wu Shopping Centre, even after several hours of “missy missy looking, you buy sunglass okay.” Still, I could really do with less nagging. My student →
As I was looking through my old columns from South China Morning Post trying to get some other newspaper gigs (do newspapers even exist anymore?) I found the above story from Norway. Allowed only 450 →
Nick (a.k.a. Cassette) and I go to an Italian restaurant in the throbbing metropolis of Mui Wo, centre of the universe and make a programme about lots of interesting things – specifically the idiotic spelling →
Yesterday I had an email from a … person, who said: “I sobbed vehemently when I saw your last Sunday Morning Post entry had come and gone.” Me too, mate, me too. Except I didn’t →
July 1st! July 1st! That day in year zero for Hong Kong, 1997, it was rather wet. OK, it torrentially bucketed down for about three weeks before and after that momentous day. Coincidence? I think →
It’s so much fun to have friends visiting Hong Kong, especially when the day they arrive kicks off a week of unprecedented beautiful weather! I shouldn’t say unprecedented; the weather was probably like this every →
I’m just about to write my last column ever for South China Morning Post; ever! When I was told the page would be discontinued, I was so sad. How now would I be able to →
