So I have this book, right? Don’t Joke On The Stairs. The title is based on a sign I saw in Gansu once, in the staircase of a language school. “Avoid the exchange of jokes →
I’m not kidding! After my book launch on the 6th of October where about 60 or 70 people descended, drinking hundreds of bottles of beer in the quiet time of the restaurant, the owner of →
So I’ve made this two-hour Cantonese learning DVD as I’ve mentioned once or twice. Here is a short excerpt giving you a little glimpse into Going Native. It’s only HK$100, including shipping inside Hong Kong, →
Wei wei everybody, wei! After a long absence caused by circumstances beyond my control, I’m now itching to write again. And what could be better than to start with something written by somebody else? Yep, →
Finally it’s here (maybe you didn’t even know that it was going to be here???) – the second installment of Cantonese – The Movie. This DVD, all two hours of it, is for people who →
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 →
Everyone who travels in China for more than, say, five minutes, has something to say about her toilets.
But I stand by my column (above) – they are nothing! Nothing, compared to only a few years ago. Here’s one:
Inside, or rather, behind the corrugated wall, was a deep ditch, not at all empty, with two narrow planks balanced across it. One slip of a toe and I wouldn’t have been here today.
Now? Nothing! It’s almost impossible to fall into anything and drown anywhere.
The last big China trip I went on, to northern Yunnan province, this was the worst toilet we found:
It was a kind of trough that wasn’t we suspected, rinsed out all that often. And yes, it did smell. Ironically this was the only toilet we had to pay to use.
Talking of toilets, now you can learn Cantonese through the medium of song!
我要去廁所 – O yiu heui chiso (I have to go to the toilet)
廁所有冇廁紙 – Chiso you mou chiji (Is there toilet paper in the toilet)
大陸廁所而家唔錯 – Dai Luk chiso yiga m cho (Mainland toilets are now not bad)
I love my house, my beach and my island (Lantau Island in Hong Kong) but sometimes I wish it was just a little bit closer to Shenzhen! Going there is, quite frankly, a bit of a drag. For years I used to take the ferry to Central, then the Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui and then a taxi to Hung Hom station before finally getting on the train to Shenzhen. This trip took more than two hours.
Then a Lantau taxi driver, who else, told me about the direct bus from Tung Chung (pronounced DUNG Chung, helloooo) that doesn’t go all the way to Lo Wu, admittedly, but still shaves an hour off the travel time. Since then my life has been much better. I’m on that bus as we speak, writing this as we cross the Tsing Ma Bridge in beautiful, sparkling clear weather.
Isn’t it amazing that one can sit on a moving bus and write stuff that at the click of a button can reach the whole world within a second? Yes! Amazing! I can’t get over it.
Of course the bus can never beat the train, but on the other hand the people running the bus services in the mainland aren’t as zealous as those on the train, for example when it comes to hair-related crime:
深圳 （Sam Jan – Deep Drain/Shenzhen)
羅湖 (Lo Wu – Net Lake)
青馬大橋 (Tseng Ma Daai Kiu – Green Horse Big Bridge/Tsing Ma Bridge. so called because it goes from 青衣, Tsing Yi [green clothes] to 馬灣, Ma Wan [Horse Bay])
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 →
I’m cooking for eight people tonight and I’m really looking forward to it. I will make Beer O’Clock Dumplings, Chicken a la Water Buffalo and Kung Fu Cucumbers, – among other things. Five other things, →
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 →
In our popular series Unusual Gifts we proudly present Sungflower Fream. What is this sungflower fream, you may ask? Why, it’s of course a notebook! The day my friend Jo gave me this gift, I →
A couple of weekends ago I had the privilege of going to Guangzhou with three fun people: F, J and AW. The following debacle ensued. (See article below) What didn’t make it into the piece →
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 →
