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Bunk Demythed! I Mean Myth Debunked!
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 run-down town of Toi Saan (yeah, yeah, “Taishan” – actually the town itself is called Toi Seng) we revisited the Golden Chilli, the best Sichuan restaurant in town and with the loudest proprietress in the world. She won new fans among ah-Jeun and ah-Leun.
But here is the MYTH I wanted to debunk, and listen carefully for it is important.
Many, many people have told me that they can’t practise Cantonese in Guangdong province because “everybody speaks Mandarin”. Er, no. Everybody speaks to them in Mandarin.
During our trip it happened probably 12 or 15 times; I’d be chatting to someone in Cantonese, but when I told that person that the two guys ah-Jeun and ah-Lun also spoke Cantonese, he would immediately address them in Mandarin – in fact would compliment them on their excellent Cantonese – in Mandarin!
Sound familar? Yes. That’s what Hong Kong people do too – only in English. They are brainwashed to speak any language but their own when up against Whitey. They think they are being polite. They also think “maybe you can speak, but you can in no way understand [your Cantonese is very good], so let me tell you in a way you can understand.”
So when you go into the hinterland to immerse yourself in Cantonese, whatever you do, don’t give up! They DO speak Cantonese.
And learn from Lei Feng. (The geezer at the bottom of the photo below)
台山 – Toi Saan (Platform Hill/Taishan)
台城 – Toi Seng (Platform City/Taicheng)
金辣椒 – Gam Lat Chiu (Gold Chilli)
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Screen Grab
No one can call me a Luddite anymore! Only 7,000 years after the invention of the computer I’m doing screen grabbing! I’m looking through my two Cantonese teaching videos Cantonese – The Movie and Going →
CantoNews For Everybody
My life goal is full global supremacy for Cantonese and I stand by it. However, that doesn’t mean that other languages can’t frolic happily alongside this most fun and happening of all tongues. Also, it →
Back In The Filming Saddle! (Camera Dies During Filming of Mexican Wedding)
Woo-hooo. My last message was pretty depressed. I talked about how I have the least job satisfaction in the entire world, yea, even less than people whose job is warning people about the dangers of →
Job Satisfaction
While having lunch (or was it cocktails? Yes! Cocktails!) with my friend Jo in Tibet northern Yunnan the other day, I suddenly realised that few people in the world has less job satisfaction than me. →
Learn Cantonese in 2016
No… that can’t be three years ago? But the calendar says it is. It’s just that it feels like a few weeks since we stood outside the railway station in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, →
Lao Wai
The new year celebrations were hard for everyone this year, even man-sized teddies. This sad corpse was lying outside my hotel in Kunming, I’m guessing thrown angrily away by some girl who had expected diamonds →
Opulent Chair Sitting – Almost!
If there’s one thing I missed during this Christmas and New Year’s Yunnan Extravaganza, it was the chance to do some serious Opulent Chair (or Sofa)- Sitting. How strange; Guangdong province is replete with ultra-opulent →
Well and Truly 2016
It’s well and truly next year! First I thought, I can’t wait for 2015 to be over, but then I stopped myself. The faster next year comes, the sooner I’ll be in the grave. So →
Happy New Canto Year!
Greetings from Shangri-la, formerly a fictitious “idyllic settlement high in the mountains of Tibet” of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon fame, now a city in China. In this photo, however, we’re a few hours further south, →
Dali: Where Christmas is not Only Santa
Jesus hovering over the Great Wall? Why not. Jesus is everywhere so why not the Great Wall? It just looked so incongruous to see the cross in the middle of Dali’s old city as we →
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Well and Truly 2016
It’s well and truly next year! First I thought, I can’t wait for 2015 to be over, but then I stopped myself. The faster next year comes, the sooner I’ll be in the grave. So →
Sacrificing Self For Tea
Wei! I’ve discovered a new tea! Don’t know how it could have escaped me for so long, as often as I go to yam cha, but there you are. Maybe I’ve become too stick in →
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Canto life in Honolulu 9 Crash course in Chinese characters
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Learn All the Mando You Need in One Day!!!
Are you going into mainland China on a tour (with me for example), travelling for business or going there anyway? Even if you’re driven around by a personal guide, waited on hand and foot by people who speak English, it’s always useful to speak some Mandarin.
In only three or four short hours, I’ll teach you everything you need to know about
- Ordering stuff in restaurants
- Shopping, paying for stuff
- Getting around (if necessary) (Well, you never know, you could lose your guide)
- Eating and drinking etiquette (Just because you don’t eat meat doesn’t mean you can’t eat ducks’ heads!)
- Praising your host and accepting gifts (warning: Never praise something too much; your host will give you three kilos of it.)
Like Cantonese in Hong Kong, a little bit of Mandarin goes a super long way in the mainland, and unlike Hong Kong, people won’t be answering you in English.
As well as general stuff, we’ll set off some time addressing your specific travel needs, which you will have emailed me beforehand. With the course material I give you, packaged in a travel-friendly way and complete with Chinese characters to show to people, you can even do the “solo intrepid traveller” bit by yourself.
With the basic phrases you learn from me and practise on locals, you will be conversant in no time. (And the Chinese only want to know where you’re from, where you’re going and how long you’ve been in China anyway.) I’ve been travelling in China for 21 years and know the score.
Now I’ve boiled all those years down to a ONE DAY CRASH COURSE!
HAPPY JELLYFISH PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC LANGUAGE BUREAU.
Everything Chinese made easy.
Contact us today
Email info@learncantonese.com.hk
to find out how you can start learning Cantonese.