Hono Begging For Your Patronage (Writing Course This Saturday)

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 →

Last Product Placement – Today

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, →

Book Review!!!!

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, →

More Proddie Placie. I’ve Earned It.

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 →

A Little Proddie Placie

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 →

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 →

New Book on the Block

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 →

Preview of Documentary

This is 54 seconds of our three week trip. More later in the documentary you can download from this site!

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 →

Despite the charms of the Chinese train and that to travel hopefully (and painfully) is better than … not at all, it’s always good to arrive when the destination is beautiful Lanzhou. It’s the most →

Deeply Embarrassed

Yep, here it is. The entire protest against Mandarin taking over and squeezing out the regional languages. Well, actually, there were more people. Two more. One was me and the other one an organiser. So, four whitey, three Chinese. And of course one policeman per protester, to deal with the inevitable violence and car-burning.

Well, there we have it. In Guangzhou a few weeks ago, thousands and thousands of people turned to show their support for Cantonese and anger at how the Mandarin behemoth is chewing its way through the cultural landscape.  In Hong Kong: Seven people. So where were they, all the young people who wrote to me after the Guangzhou demonstration, almost in tears it seemed, thanking me for “saving” their language? I’m embarrassed. And this came the day after the SCMP in a one-page article wrote in glowing terms about how young Guangzhou people look to Hong Kong for cultural inspiration. Pah!

GoingNativeCover

Burglary Warning To Lantau People (and Everybody)

So on Saturday I hosted a Sichuan dinner for twelve people, three of whom called and said they were lost. I had to rush out in mid-stuffing of dumplings to fetch them. (It was the taxi driver’s fault! Although they showed him my address in Chinese characters he took them to the other side of Pui O) I closed but didn’t lock the doors. The dog was there and the roof was reverberating with happy voices.

When we got back to the house we found a man inside the house, a Chinese guy with hair dyed light pink. He smiled beatifically pointing to his ear holding up a piece of paper with (as far as I could see) English print on it. I didn’t stop to read it, I was too busy frogmarching him out of my house. My instinct was saying “burglar, burglar” not “poor deaf beggar who hasn’t been told that you don’t just walk into people’s house”. I won’t deny it, I was so angry I gave him a good kick in the arse. What I should have done is of course search his bag, but I was too angry to think.

Since then I’ve heard about three different burglaries on Lantau this week, two of which with the owner inside the house and one in broad daylight. So watch out! Lock the door even if you’re at home. Lock all the doors and windows even if you only nip out for a minute. These guys are professionals, they’re in-out in a few seconds. Have locks installed on your clothes cabinet and make it a habit to put laptops, phones and cameras there every time you go out. Like the policeman said who gave a safety seminar a few years ago: Anything that can slow the burglar down is of great help.

爆竊 (bau sit – burglary)
賊佬 (chaak lou – thief, burglar)
偷嘢 (tau yeh – steal things)