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 →

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 →

Children Outside Society

Last night I shared a taxi from Tung Chung – oh how it pains me to spell it that way when it’s pronounced DUNG Chung – with a boy and his domestic helper. I noticed →

Only Whitey Can Be Racist

I have in my hand (and when I say hand I mean computer screen) an extraordinary document entitled “Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send”. Reading through the list, I’m damned glad to be →

Beautiful Serendipity

I spent the weekend in Shenzhen and it was lovely. As I walked around in the sunshine Sunday morning I suddenly realised why I’ve been so unhappy recently. Well, ISIS, WWIII is coming, all that; →

It’s All About Face

Here is one of my students – let’s call him X-tor. Like so many he succumbed to “MOvember,” the terrible annual male uglification-fest where guys deliberately mutilate their faces to get people to give them →

Hound Hoping for Home

Here is a thoroughly kind, cheerful and people-loving dog called Rascal, 3. The name is misleading because he’s not alpha or naughty. He’s also not fearful. I’ve known him ever since his owner adopted him →

SUNDAY: Semi-Dignified Farewell

Yesterday I dragged myself up Lantau Peak to scatter the ashes of a dear friend who died in April. It really made me admire even more those brave souls who participated in the Moontrekker thing →

New Podcast For Beginners! CantoNews 2

Woo-hoooo! Everybody everywhere! Now you can learn Cantonese absolutely free with the help of Lantau people. Although the Lantau podcasts CantoNews are strictly for and by Lantau people – what the hell, anyone can listen! →

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 →

Farewell Naked Cantonese, Well Hello There … Name?

SO! That was the end of Naked Cantonese. Four years of laughter and tears, trying not to say “crap” on live radio, trials and tribulations, toilets and twits.

Although I’ve only ever listened to one of the programmes – the last one – I was under the impression that it has been moderately successful and attracted listeners from all over the globe. Therefore I wrote to the producer at RTHK saying we should do something else in a different format, seeing Cantonese is so popular and stuff.

No, said the producer. A REST is what’s needed now. Let’s NOT make any more Cantonese programmes.

… and that’s probably why he’s working for a government-run station. Imagine if it had been a privately owned company:

” Hey, we have a good product here that a lot of people are buying.”
” Oh, okay, then we should stop making it immediately. That will be better for business.”

So now, what do we do, irate listeners? I tell you what: Make our own radio. I invite you to come Cantoing with me through the seething underbelly of Kowloon and other places, and make podcasts and films. You won’t get paid but will learn a lot of Cantonese, and become famous in the Ukraine. What say you? Sign up, sign up!

(Oh yeah the photo? Piles ascending. Symbolism innit. The only way is up.)

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Upgrading Site

You can’t see it yet but my website is being refurbished. The first thing I want to change is the cover of the Cantonese teaching videos Cantonese – The Movie and Going Native (see above). Cantonese – The Movie is for total beginners and Going Native for a more mature audience.

But what do you think of the cover? I showed it to a couple of people, one gay man and a straight woman, and the gay guy said “this will appeal only to gay men and straight women”. Not a tiny demographic if you ask me! Still – is it overdressed?

Here is the trailer for that two hour teaching video, which will take you around the entire world – and further!

世界 (sai gai – world)
毛巾 (mou gan – towel)