Sichuan Food i Sleepy Backwater Pui O?!?

Last night I had eight people from Lantau over to my Sichuan Function Room on the roof of my gaff, Lo Uk Tsuen Country Club (羅屋村俱樂部). Great success! I made dumplings, gong bao chicken (公保雞）cucumbers in spicy sauce and garlic, fish fragrant aubergines (魚香茄子）and dry-fried potato slivers with chillies and spring onions （乾煸土豆絲）.

The roof looked particularly splendid that afternoon, I must say, bathed in an intriguing light that soon turned to sub-tropical darkness.

From the kitchen I could hear screams of laughter in French, Italian,(Sicilian) English and Swiss. Which is also French. This is the first Sichuan meal I’ve cooked where everything was devoured down to the last grain of rice.
Oh no, hadn’t I cooked enough? But they were beside themselves with joy, it seemed.

Come to Lo Uk Tsuen Country Club for your big or small celebration! Minimum eight people, maximum 50. Come on, do you really know more than 50 people in Hong Kong? All right, 60 then, but then I can’t guarantee matching glasses…

What Are The Chances?

Yesterday I got a new student and bugger me if he wasn’t … Mexican! I mean, what are the chances? Before I went to Mexico, I had only ever met three Mexicans: Hector, a guy I talked to in a bar we called Mangle (Mingle, now sadly defunct) but who couldn’t speak English, and of course my great hero Cesar Millan.

Now I have met a whole bunch of Mexicans and I have to say, I like them a lot. I was a bit disappointed not to see – anywhere! – a guy sleeping under a sombrero outside an adobe shack, but hey. There’s still Breaking Bad. So I expect great things from this new victim, ah-Lei! More Mexico in my life, I say.

學生 (Hok saang – student)
酒吧 (Jau ba – bar)
墨西哥 (Mak Sai Go – Mexico)

A Victory

I just have to post this comment from one of my students, ah Laan, here. She, as well as I and everybody who’d ever attempted to take on the Canto, has fought through being answered in English, no matter what she said, for weeks. But then: “...Great victory today in the vida Canto - I often visit the small shop near our apartment for juice or snacks and always greet the proprietress in Cantonese. She greets me in English then responds to my statements - "How much is this" or "I don't need a bag" in English. But today - VICTORY! I went down to buy a beer, said hello (she answered me in Canto), asked how much it cost (she answered me in Canto), and said I didn't need a bag (she got a huge smile andwell, she said something in Canto that I couldn't understand), but dammit! It worked! It finally worked!.”

It does work. Believe me. As long as you don’t back down, break down or give up.

This Is Your Big Chance

Christmas is ridiculously coming (in about a year) and my students have decided to take several months off. There is a lull and: You can step into it, becoming fluent in Cantonese around February next →

The War Against Cantonese – Now They Are Using Children

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The Uses of Cantonese

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Cards! (Who Wants To Play?)

I just rediscovered this film when a viewer had a question about the rules. Watching it again, I think it’s actually quite good. And suddenly I’m dying to play cards! Let’s start a cho dai →

Advice

Hoi hoi! Everybody everywhere, I can’t say this often enough: When you’re learning Cantonese: Get your course material in order. Something like the folder above, purchased by R, separating the material into categories, clearly labelled. →

Cantonese – The Movie Episode 32!!!!

The simplified characters menace is growing. Businesses all over Hong Kong are falling over themselves to accommodate mainlanders only, showing in a not very subtle manner that they’re not interested in local customers: by using →

Ridiculous System

This morning I had a Canto-lesson on my roof (Lantau people: Come to Pui O to learn Cantonese this summer!) and mentioned the word 雀仔(jeuk tsai) -bird. What? my student cried, aghast. Her daughter went →

Frightening Mandofication

Working hard on our new film Simply The Worst, a frightening sci-fi look at what happens when the government forces simplified characters on us. So I suddenly remembered the above film about speech-making communist language →

Have You Seen a Doctor?

It’s no secret that Hong Kong people are very enthusiastic about fraternising with people from the medical profession at any opportunity. Last night one of my students turned up to the glorious Canto session with →

Gagging To Go

Hi people! I’m going to take Adventure Trip off my new website as there wasn’t a big market for going into Guangdong province (weird) but the trips still go on, of course. There are so →