Woo-hoo! Finally there’s a podcast dealing only with Lantau issues, made by Lantau people like Carina (ah-Lin) (above) Rudolf (ah-Dak) and Tony (ah-Lei). OK, I admit it. I was planning on podcasts of five minutes →
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 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 →
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 →
I had forgotten how much I like making films, and how those I cast in the various roles grow to hate go on to mega-stardom. Take one of the girls in this Halloween-themed film for →
USA! A land of Christmas and interestingly decorated cafés. A land of truck stops and rolling hills, big roads, big cars and big trolleys for people who are too fat to walk. The first time →
It’s happening! I’m upgrading this website so you can download films and podcasts. There will be two long videos to begin with, and the above is the ‘for total beginners’ one. One hour and 14 →
Warning: Contains Mandarin!
I’ve got a couple of beginners ready to take a three hour crash course in the noble art of “Ordering Stuff in a Restaurant or Bar in Excellent Cantonese.” I know that most people visiting →
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 →
Is being a Luddite with a Mac an oxymoron? But sometimes I think that’s what I am. Here I am, trying to make Cantonese a world language – in Hong Kong! the very stronghold of →
Cantonese is a war and we’re going to win it. We’ll put the fun AND the mental back into “fundamentalists”! Anyway I have a new and eager recruit here by the name of Ah- … →
Why this photo? Found it and liked it again, innit. Anyway, the other day one of my students suggested that I set up some kind of counting device; you know, something like the count-down to →
Last Saturday I started a new thing: Learn everything about Chinese characters in two hours. Ten people turned up, and when they staggered out of the venerable Honolulu Coffee Shop two hours and fifteen minutes →
Well, it’s not really a classifier as such, because classifiers are used to classify specific things, as we’ve seen before in for example: 我有兩隻狗，(o yau leung jek gau) – I have two dogs. 0的 (di) →
Okay, it’s official. This Saturday we’re kicking off a character-learning extravaganza like you’ve never seen; the first in a series of two hour workshops where you’ll learn everything you need to set you on the →
Hi people. Sorry about the delay. Delay no more! Yesterday the following delightful email clattered down into my inbox: Hi Cecilie, I'd like to start learning to learn Chinese characters. What I need is a →
