Ah, young love. It is splendid. ‘taller than’ is 高過 (gou go) whereas just ‘taller’ is 高啲 (gou di)。Could it be any easier?
This has nothing to do with Cantonese… but it kind of does. Because: When that 1972-technilogy behemoth starts spewing out its particles of 3,000 tonnes a day of burning rubbish wholesale, a lot of the →
We had a brilliant day on Sunday, venturing into the wilderness, sacrificing our safety (there were insects and a dead fish) so that YOU will more easily learn Cantonese, the language that sounds like two →
I started learning Cantonese back in the mid-90s. Every morning I would take the 07:00 ferry to work and play cards with the swearing workers. I realised this was the best and fastest way to →
Splendid China is exactly that – splendid. Only 15 to 20 minutes’ drive from Lo Wu is a world of semi naked guys dancing and dancing, Chinese opera shrieking through your bones and every famous →
Come with, come with on a Cantonese language seminar to Guangdong province! Before it disappears.
A Nog, bored with being from Norway Who wanted to be born in Galway Bought dog collars green From an Aussie colleen And went to the St. Patrick’s ball, wei! What kind of poem is →
Chat chat chat – now you can learn Cantonese without going through the nasty and potentially violent experience of being in the same room as me! Namely through the wonderful medium of SKYPE. Hook up →
What do you do in Bangkok? Look for Chinese food, obviously!
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 last time. Even the lower buildings in the ancient-looking cities of Jung Saan (中山）and Toi Saan (台山) in the Pearl River Delta were only built in the early 1900s.
Everybody is so friendly and say Buenos Dias unprompted! A guy in a shop gave me his umbrella because the umbrella shop didn’t open till 11. Yes it’s jolly well raining. This is vexing and rather inconvenient, because the ground is covered in round, really smooth stones. Death lurks around every step.
To be quite honest i think it’s rude to be raining on my holiday, especially torrentially and that on National Day! A bit out of order. Another illusion (Mexico hot, dry) bites the dust.
雨遮 (yu jeh – umbrella)
墨西哥國慶日 （Mak Sai Goh gok heng yat – Mexico’s National Day)
激死人 (Gek sei yan – dead irritating)
A lovely day has begun in the lovely city of Guangzhou and after yesterday’s torrential rain people are pouring out in the streets again. Just outside the hotel I saw this guy relaxing with a →
I’ve finally finished the last chapter (or recipe) in my Sichuan cookery book, a book that isn’t really a book, for can it be a book when it’s only online? If not, what should it →
Drowning in weather! I got up at 5 having slept very little due to the absolutely wild weather that shook my house all night. Apparently the lightning had struck Lantau Island 3,000 times out of →
It’s no secret that I love the motherland, China, over all other lands, and not only because of Mons 雪花(Suet Fa – Snow Flower) beer and Sichuan food either. I’ve had more fun there than →
Smoke! Is it just me or has Central become unbearable after the smoking ban was implemented? I’ve become one of those middle-aged hags who sniffily wave her hand in front of her face while walking, →
This is one of the reasons why I love Cantonese: 咩! (Meeh, wot? or what kind of…) My theory: It started out as 乜嘢 (mat yeh, what thing. As in: 你飲乜嘢呀？Lei yam mat yeh ah? →
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 →
I discovered a new Canto word this week! And I won’t forget it, because I learnt it in a situation and from a live person, not a dictionary or app. So I do this Sichuan →
It’s difficult for me when holidays suddenly pop up in the middle of the week. Yesterday I felt it was Sunday （禮拜日，lai bai yat) all day although it was Wednesday (禮拜三 lai bai saam), and →
Today I want to publicly thank a Norwegian writer named Are Kalvø who in the year 2007 had a brilliant idea which inspired me no end. He would travel all around Norway and eat in →
Here’s one of my students, let’s call him X, taking the gun off some local on one of our outings to southern China. He’s been studying for a while now and has always done very →
I’m running a series on Facebook called Beer Is Beautiful, largely featuring this woman and her associates. And other people I know. The other day I tried ‘beer is beautiful’ in Cantonese in Honolulu Coffee →
Sometimes I’m tempted to give up the whole Cantonese thing. I mean, what’s the point? The Mando behemoth is going to roll Hong Kong and the Cantonese-speaking world into the ground and pour concrete on →
This is the very first photo I had taken of myself in China (a Chelfie?) in 1988. It was in the then famous silk market, no doubt demolished now, and the guy was probably some →
It used to be that Shenzhen was a wild party town. For me, that is – I’m sure it still is for the young people of today. Now that former frontier, now settled and comfortably →
Is it racist to say that Chinese people in China aren’t great at making Western food? That is my experience anyway. And that experience is now almost 28 years. Wow! Not that I have eaten →
I must have mentioned once or twice that I cook Sichuan food which I serve on my, I have to say, beautiful roof terrace overlooking the South China Sea? It’s just that recently I’ve been →
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 →
Chillies, chopsticks, even cha are they only Chinese things, meant for Chinese people? I’ve had this conversation hundreds of times in the mainland and in Hong Kong, but I somehow didn’t expect to have it →
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 →
