Preview of Documentary

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

Camels, what’s not to like? They are haughty but kindly, patient but laconic. They understand human nature, then spit on it. In Dunhuang, an oasis town between the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts, there are camels →

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 →

Last year I went from Lanzhou to Xiahe, a Tibetan stronghold, by bus. I had read in a book about the Silk Road that this would involve an “eight hour hair-raising bus trip” and looked →

Not far from Lanzhou, transport and travel hub of the north, is the small town of Xiahe, dominated by the large and imposing Labrang Monastery. Last time I went there the main drag (the only →

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 →

Yes, although this isn’t strictly about language and certainly not Cantonese as I’m Mando-jabbering all day long, I want to put these postings from my blog www.chinadroll.com here as well. Travel broadens the mind, narrows →

.. an old podcast: A Sojourn in Shenzhen. Yes, one whole person has expressed interest in hearing it, so I must oblige. Also I happen to be going to Shenzhen again tomorrow as part of →

Yes, soon you’ll be able to download more than three hours of Canto magic from this very site!I met my computer expert friend yesterday behind the third toilet from the left, and handed over the →

Oh, whoops, how did a burqa sneak in there? Must have been the word ‘black’. Anyway, so most of my students have the same complaint: No matter how good their Cantonese is, Hong Kong people →

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Rare Article Sympathises With Cantonese

First of all: Please buy my latest book and second: You’ll never guess where I ended up this week! HKTDC!!! Which I have no idea what stands for. Some magazine. The article is quite sympathetic to Cantonese; even calling it a language. Thank you, Melanie Ho.

The Next Station Is Hopping Mad

The Transport Department has just made my life a little bit worse. As if ten or more minutes of every ferry trip, twice a day, being taken up by screaming public announcements in three languages wasn’t enough, they have now started on the buses too.

Look, I’m all for the digital signs, okay? There are so many tourists on Lantau now, you can’t expect the bus driver to answer questions about where things are and stuff. (Of course when tourists see 貝澳羅屋村 (Bui O Lo Uk Tsuen, Net House Village in Bui O) they still won’t know where the damned beach is and will still ask the driver, but hey.)

But the spoken announcements! In three “languages”! Scratchy, whiny, screechy and impossible to block out, coming as they do from an inferior speaker right above your head, the announcements are driving me mad. Mad, I say! And they are relentless. As soon as one has stopped, another one comes up, often long after you’ve passed the bus stop. Why aren’t the digital signs enough? People can read or they’re with someone who can read. And if they can’t read, chances are they’re 80 years old and born on Lantau. They know where the things are.

A couple of years ago I had a two-year email war with the Transport Department. I asked why, when each ferry is covered in about 300 signs (“signage”) telling you what to do in great detail and with happy cartoons, it is necessary to have a loud, overpowering voice screeching at you to keep your voice down? I reasoned that people know how to take a ferry. We get on and sit down. Then we get off. But the government thinks we need to be told how to do this, twice a day. It’s impossible to work, talk or read while it’s going on.

The Department proudly came back with this: It’s for the blind people!

So I presume the bus announcements are for the same reason: All those blind people who go to Pui O Beach by themselves every day. What a kind department.

Just one thing, I thought 巴士站 (basi tsaam, bus stop) was called ‘stop’ in English? Not “station”? Oh well. The Hong Kong government knows best.