Why Move?

USA! A land of Christmas and interestingly decorated cafés. A land of truck stops and rolling hills, big roads, big cars and big trolleys for people who are too fat to walk. The first time →

Bored No More

FINALLY! I had had absolutely no yam cha (afternoon tea and dim sum) since September 14 and was starting to see double. Although I had plenty of deep-fried, comforting Southern food on my blaze-through of →

Hong Kong, my Hong Kong

I’ve been home a week, and Mexico is merely a dream again. Only the photos and a couple of excellent fridge magnet plus a beautiful pendant I got from a real Mexican girl, remind me →

SUNDAY: Liberty Airport, Newark

People! I can’t recommend Newark Airport enough! A mere 20 minute drive from downtown Manhattan, (or 12 hours’ drive from Shaker Village Kentucky as the case may be) is this place where, unlike JFK and →

Back Again So Soon?

I can’t believe I’m home again! The two weeks in Mexico and the US seemed like two months because there was so much happening, and everything mine eyes looked upon I saw for the first →

Serendipity, Knob and Thomas Jefferson

Oh! Oh! Oh! USA! Talk about the exact opposite of Mexico – at least Mexico City and Horn Cow. In those two places, everyone lives behind high walls and sturdy gates. And according to my →

Mexican Wedding

You will forgive me for my thoughts and feelings straying somewhat from Cantonese recently. It’s all about the Spanish now. Now, for example, I’m in Cuernavaca which interestingly means Horn Cow. It’s a beautiful, hilly →

Grooving With Non-Moustache Pete

Let me just say, any town where this is the central post office has my vote! Yesterday as we were driving and walking around downtown Mexico City, I shouted out loud with joy several times. →

Thank You For Not Being An Arse

Thank you for not being an arse? That was my first reaction. Then I thought: That doesn’t make sense. Why would someone put a sign saying Thank you for not being an arse on their →

A Delicate Piece Of Medical Advice

Hong Kong’s airport – don’t you just love it? I do. It’s so so airport-y! I had been looking forward to spending a couple of hours there before my flight to Mexico (I’m now in →

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Revenge Of The Cantomentalists

The debate about Canto rages on. Now mainland officials are weighing in, in an about-turn saying the government would “release a policy outline and new regulations to boost Cantonese cultural heritage.” So it’s all over →

The Day Had To Come …

… when one of my victims spake up. I was just sitting around writing a blog entry the other day when: Wallop! Kristian, who’s currently in Norway working on the Norwegian Coastal Express (Hurtigruta) and →

Another Nail in the Canto Coffin

Ahhrghhhh … When I set out to make Cantonese a world language, I was mostly concerned with Hong Kong and its people – the way they look down on Cantonese (their own language!!!) calling it →

Fu$$ball

I never thought I would write about football here. Or anywhere. I’ve just watched England being decimated by Germany in record time and it was not a pretty sight. The commentator kept saying: “Here is →

Guerrilla/Crash Course this Saturday

You know you want to learn Cantonese without really trying! Well, this Saturday, in only 3 short hours  you can learn everything you need to kick-start your Canto career. I’ll give you all the tricks →

Sacrificing Self For Tea

Wei! I’ve discovered a new tea! Don’t know how it could have escaped me for so long, as often as I go to yam cha, but there you are. Maybe I’ve become too stick in →

Walk Some Steps For The Cause

WEI! Everybody everywhere! I’m off to the motherland for a long but not long enough weekend, to make programmes about … oh, I can’t talk about it. OK, Mandarin. Anyway, when I get back next →

A Traitor Unto Himself

Oh! NOW I’m disappointed. Chow Seng Chi (周星馳）was my big Canto love for years and years. Because: 1. Extremely handsome 2. Funny I used his films as teaching and learning tools of Canto, and when →

At Last – New Video

Warning: Contains Mandarin!

I’ve got a couple of beginners ready to take a three hour crash course in the noble art of “Ordering Stuff in a Restaurant or Bar in Excellent Cantonese.” I know that most people visiting →

Different For Chinese

As I was looking through my old columns from South China Morning Post trying to get some other newspaper gigs (do newspapers even exist anymore?) I found the above story from Norway. Allowed only 450 →

CantoNews Live from the Throbbing Metropolis of Mui Wo

Nick (a.k.a. Cassette) and I go to an Italian restaurant in the throbbing metropolis of Mui Wo, centre of the universe and make a programme about lots of interesting things – specifically the idiotic spelling →

Beautiful Day On “Dark” Side

It’s so much fun to have friends visiting Hong Kong, especially when the day they arrive kicks off a week of unprecedented beautiful weather! I shouldn’t say unprecedented; the weather was probably like this every →

SUNDAY: “Cold”

Hong Kong is in a frost frenzy! The temperature has crept below 10C – the temperature in my living room, that is – and everyone is busy posting, of all things, screen shots of their →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Summertime, And The Living Are Busy

Wei wei, everybody! Summer has descended with quite blue skies and the accompanying 34 degrees, and my students are leaving town in droves. This clears up space and time for you. But you don’t have →

西麗湖

There’s a place formerly ‘just outside’ now in Shenzhen called 西麗湖, Sai Lai Wu,West Beautiful Lake. It’s a kind of resort in that there are rooms and some trees around it, as well as a →