Enemy at 12! Avoiding Foreigners in China

Just for the record, in the first sentence of this column I wrote “.. black family that has – gasp – managed to become middle class and live in a posh neighbourhood.” I think the →

China Everything – The Movie. Yes, Mandarin!!!!

Three months of work are finally over and the result is a 114 minute travel, language, transport and accommodation guide to the Silk Road including Kazakhstan, and, well, anything in China really. The premiere was →

Miyakojima! 宮古島

The mainland is all well and good, in fact better than well and certainly better than good, but there other countries around here. Japan for example. Not that this tiny island that’s much closer to →

The Eagle has Flapped Away

Do you live in Hong Kong? Have you lived here for a number of years? (Any number higher than, say, one?) Then you must already be starting to get sick of people leaving. Now it’s →

Learn Sichuan Cooking!

Woo-hooo! WE did that! the happy cooks A, K and D are beaming, so pleased with themselves after studying Sichuan cooking for only two hours. (Chuanxing village spicy potato cake) Now you can also learn →

Learn Cantonese Without Really Trying: New Products

People are busy and don’t always have time to commit to one or two hours of studying Cantonese every week. But does that mean you can’t learn Cantonese? NO! With Happy Jellyfish Language Bureau’s many →

Cantonese – The Easiest Language in the World?

When I started learning Cantonese there was no shortage of Chinese people warning me against it. At that time the most common refrain was: “It’s too difficult – for you“. OK, maybe they didn’t emphasise →

Communi-Play-Tion

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 in all other motherlands put together, I reckon, but it wouldn’t have been half or even 10% so much fun if it hadn’t been for the languages I managed to claw away from her inhabitants; first Mandarin and then Cantonese.

First not understanding a single word and everything around me being more or less a mystery, going on to slowly building up a simple vocabulary and – woo-hoo! being understood when I talked to people, making jokes in their language and making people laugh because they were good jokes, not because I was ridiculous, well that must count for the single greatest experience of my adult life.

It’s that feeling and that experience I first and foremost want to share with people in this quest to make Cantonese a world language (while letting the other languages live too). Sadly, many of my clients unconsciously put up hindrances for themselves by for example repeating the tried and tested mantra “I’m crap at languages”.

The brain is basically a lump of rubber that does what it’s told. It’s set in neutral if you like, and then you programme it to go in certain directions. So if you keep saying, or even thinking, “I’m crap at languages”, guess what – that becomes your reality. As Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.”

Also, language is one of the few things no one is crap at. It’s hardwired into our DNA to pick up language from those around us, using the right method to learn a language instinctively. That’s why I advice my clients to become like a child again if they want to become fluent fast.

A child?!? But I’m 35! they think. I’m a grown man/woman with children and a mortgage! It’s embarrassing!!!

More about this tomorrow. Until then, ask three people how to say whatever word it is you don’t know, in Cantonese. Train your communication muscle with all the strangers you meet. Then make a joke 講笑(gong siu – speak laugh) and wait for the peals of laughter!

Joke-share

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 is with the Cantonese language. 廣東話，廣州話，粵語，中文， (Gong dung wah, Gong Jau wah, Yu yu, and Zhong man) just to name a few. In the mainland people often call it 白話，(bak wah, ‘white language’).

Last time I was in Shenzhen, it happened again: 嘩，你點解識講白話呀？Wah, lei dim gai sek gong bak wah ah? (Wow, how come you can speak white language?)
I naturally, as always, answered: 因為我有白皮膚吖嘛！Yanwai o yau bak peifu a ma! (Because I have white skin, innit.) Yes, that gets a big laugh every time. Every time. So now I’m giving my beloved joke to you.