The Mandarin Behemoth Juggernaut Destroyer

Sleepy backwater Pui O, a haven of backwaterishness and sleepiness. Who would think this village and especially its beach would become a hub for mainlanders on shopping sprees? They spend the days shopping in the ‘outlets’ (also known as shops, but outlets somehow sounds cheaper) in Tung Chung, and then spend the nights in tents on Pui O beach.

The beach and nearby roads reverberate to the sound of Shrrr shrr shrrrr shrrr, which is one of the about four different sounds the Mando language seems to consist of. Of course they come from the north and don’t speak Cantonese, but I can’t help feeling a little disconcerted hearing it all around me here in Hong Kong which should be a bastion of Cantonese.

The other day I was waiting for the 3M bus to Tung Chung at Lo Uk Tsuen’s new bus stop, the worst, most dangerous and badly made bus stop in the entire universe, and overheard a conversation between a young couple and the mother of one of them (I assumed). They were Cantonese speakers, proper Cantonese speakers from, I guessed, Guangzhou. They had a little girl about four or five years old, but when they talked to her, they suddenly switched to Mandarin.

What the?

I asked, as I always do “Just out of interest, why do you talk to the child in not your mother tongue?”
“Oh, that’s the way they speak in school.”

I knew it of course. I’ve met hundreds of parents like that. They think they are helping the child by making it monolingual.

Is there any hope? What’s in the mainland is bound to come here, because those commies can’t help themselves, they must force everyone to be, act and speak the same.
Some people think Mandarin and Cantonese are the same, only with different pronunciation. NOTHING could be further from the truth. Mandarin is a boring, communist-speech vehicle, poor in vocabulary and largely constructed by bureaucrats. If Cantonese is English, Mandarin is Esperanto. And the simplified characters? Don’t get me started! Why should we be forced to adopt something inferior and shabby when what we have is great?

Stand up to the Mandarin juggernaut! Learn Cantonese this year.

國語 (Gok yu – Mandarin)
巴士站 (Ba si chaam – bus stop)
羅屋村 (Lo uk tsuen – Lo house village)
父母 (Fu mou – parents)
大陸人 (Daai luk yan)

Shi Shi Shi Shi (Reasons To Learn Canto #220)

The above film is a true picture of what Hong Kong will be like if the Chinese government get its way in forcing all us lowly subjects to speak the holy language Mandarin, or Putonghua →

Be The Gwai!

The other day one of my students created a brilliant slogan. I was telling her about how local Chinese people think all Caucasians are complete idiots who can’t read numbers, don’t know what milk is →

Dragon Year – How Can You Get Through It Without Cantonese???

So it’s a new year again, this time rather more important than just old 2012 – it’s the year of the DRAGON. Full of upheavals and excitement, it is also the luckiest year in the →

New Podcast!!!! Foot Massage in Shenzhen With ElleX

These guys have nothing to do with foot massage, Shenzhen or anything in the podcast (outcast) except they are NOT duds. But dudes. So I finally worked out how to get a direct bus from →

Mainland Charmer Sugarcoats Words:

So this is how the common or garden mainlander sees HK people… No. of course not. This geezer is just an army of one. A rabid minority misunderstanding his own nationality. Oh, and a professor →

New Canto Film!!!!!

It’s been a year but finally more Cantonese. If you want to be in a film, give us a shout! This one wasn’t as easy to make as normally, logistically. But with iMovie and some →

Good Old Aluminium Man

Yesterday we finished shooting In A Whorehouse – The Sequel, so soon there will be a brand new Canto extravaganza on YouTube. About time, some would say, as the last one, ‘Romeo and Juliet – →

New Podcast! (From Sober to Drunk in 10 Minutes)

Last weekend saw me in Guangzhou with the ridiculously handsome and delightful Kendall, a Guangzhou resident (above) to shoot my new Cantonese-worshipping movie ‘In a Whorehouse – The Sequel’. I will say no more about →

Ah-Mok Rides Again!

I suddenly realised it’s been over a year since my last real Canto-film, Episode 30, Christmas Extravaganza. I quickly decided to do something about it and you’ll be able to see the result on YouTube →

A Way To Benefit From Not Joking On Stairs:

Yesterday I had a lesson at home with one of my Lantau contingent, a shy girl called ah-Kei. A big part of my language teaching is trying to get people to understand that no matter →

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Struggling On in Face of Adversity

Yesterday, Gweipo
agonised over her own and her son’s struggle with pesky Mandarin. She invited her readers to comment on who or what’s to blame for us foreigners not being able to learn Cantonese and/or Mandarin.

This coincided with a new student of mine, so proud after Monday’s session where she learnt to order stuff and ask about prices, coming to me yesterday, ears and tail hanging. “Nobody will speak to me in Cantonese!”

If I had a millionth of a cent for every time I’ve heard that?

I have of course also been through it myself. The secret is never backing down in the face of locals’ English, but unfortunately most of my students have been raised to be nice, never to talk back and certainly not waste people’s time by asking them to speak slowly and clearly.

Thus the locals always win and congratulate themselves on their excellent English, scoffing at all those whiteys who can never learn Cantonese because it’s “too difficult for them” (but not too difficult for Filipino or Indonesian helpers, as well as every non-Chinese speaking third generation overseas Chinese touching down at Chek Lap Kok.)

Yes, learning Canto is indeed a game for the hard, cruel and evil. And stubborn.

All you Canto learners out there: We’re not in this game to be nice. The people we come in contact with every day and who are our best and shortest route to linguistic proficiency, waiters, taxi drivers, shop assistants, guys who come to fix things, are in the service industry. You are their client, paying them to perform a service for you.

Therefore it’s not up to them to decide what language you two will communicate in. You’re not there to be nice to them. If it takes longer for you to say what you want to say in your becoming better-and-better-because-you-practice-every-day Cantonese, they’ll just have to wait. You have the money – if they insist on using English despite your efforts, you can just take your business elsewhere.

I have jumped out of many taxis in mid-drive when the driver wouldn’t stop squawking in his execrable English, insisting on carrying on with his belief-system hammered into him from birth: All Caucasians can only speak English. And if they speak Cantonese, that’s also English. Somehow.

All you need to learn Cantonese quickly and effortlessly is simply this: To address every Chinese person you come in contact with, in his own language. Always. Without exception. You’re not there to prop up their illusions about their English being great. You’re there to learn the local language in the city where you live.