Finally Lantau Becomes Modern

Recently we Lantau residents have been bombarded with information about how our lives will be so infinitely better; first with the mega-incinerator with its “no emissions” and now with another 1 million people in the →

Morris Lets Norway off Hook

As a Norwegian, I’m more than used to certain nationalities using “Norway” as “the weirdest, most bizarre thing you can think of”, in books, articles and speech. Whenever I say where I’m from, out comes →

Last Word About the Worst Flu Ever.

Have you had it? Who hasn’t? Shitty province. But I kind of love it!

Most of my live Cantonese sessions are done in the venerable Honolulu Coffee and Cake Shop, one of the last proper cha chanteng in Central. The last venue (see film above), whose name I can’t →

Saturday night my house was flooded with what at first glance looked like supermodels. 15 young people in their twenties and early thirties stampeded in to have a Sichuan meal, carefully cooked with the finest →

In the column below I bemoan the fact that my first Inner Guangdong town, (where I coined the phrase ‘hovelage’ – excellent traditional Chinese architecture made to last but a little careworn) has become a →

Ever since my friend suggested I should teach Mandarin (NEVER!!! Down with simplified characters and cultural imperialism!) new Cantonese students have been pouring in. There was something about making a decision, having a goal in →

Last Friday I was so happy, because I had a trip to Shenzhen all lined up. Probably only a day trip, but still! Shenzhen is Shenzhen. Sichuan food, having some shirts made and foot massage. →

Are you a woman? Caucasian or Caucasian with benefits? Do you live in Hong Kong? Then you may have referred to yourself at some point as “Gwailou”. Guess what, you’re not. Only men can be →

Last month I was feeling a little down in the dumps; I felt that life was a cruel joke and nothing was going my way. For a while I didn’t even have that old chestnut, →

New Bust-blocker from Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau!

Damn – I’ve done it! I’ve gone and betrayed my love, the Cantonese language. Well, all I’ve said about it is true and right, and it is my beloved language number 1A. It’s just that →

The Last Time I’ll Mention “Cold” (Mad River Swimming)

So people are going in search of ice on which to seriously hurt themselves and icicles to photograph in astonishment. Yes it was 3C this morning. Not boiling, I’ll admit. But imagine going out this →

The Imperialism Continues

The Mandofication continues at breakneck speed. I’m sure the “great” idea of making Hong Kong simplified character-ised to “adapt” and accommodate the 700,000 mainlanders currently living here so they’ll feel more at home, has already →

New Website!!!!

I’ve finally got my new website up. According to my web guy, it will help sell my two Cantonese teaching videos Cantonese – The Movie and Going Native. I have just watched those two videos →

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, →

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 →

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, in Lijiang. That’s where we came across this sign written in normal (non-simplified) Chinese characters. It was a cause for celebration! But in fact I see more and more companies, whether restaurants or import-export, using normal characters on their signs, flying in the face of the central government that has strictly forbidden this. Why? They know simplified characters look cheap and shabby, low quality and fake.

The central government’s war against normal characters goes hand in hand with its war against Cantonese.

So why not turn the tide? Why let Cantonese, the most fun and happening language in the world, be obliterated by petty bureaucrats?

Make 2016 the year you learn Cantonese! If you already speak it, encourage your friends to take lessons! Of course, you shouldn’t do it for political reasons, although important, you should do it because it will change your life.

Next year (tomorrow!) I’ll tell you in what way.

Happy, happy Canto-year everybody!

香格里拉 – Heung Gak Lei La (Shangri la)
麗江 -Lai Gong (Beautiful River/Lijiang)
中國政府 – Jung Gok Jeng Fu (Chinese government)