In The Market for Grooviness

Here is an excellent way to practise and learn more Cantonese: Going to the market with your very own Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau. This is how it works: First we sit down with →

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 →

Reasons To Learn Cantonese

Behold one of my students, 五天 (- M Tin, Five Heavens)! He is doing everything right; practising every day, doing language exchange with locals and learning characters. Here he is in the middle of showing →

Screen Grab

No one can call me a Luddite anymore! Only 7,000 years after the invention of the computer I’m doing screen grabbing! I’m looking through my two Cantonese teaching videos Cantonese – The Movie and Going →

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 →

On the Spray to Shenzhen

Last week my glorious sister Beate came to spend Christmas in Hong Kong which she did and how. But no trip to Hong Kong is complete without a trip to Shenzhen. Is it? No, it →

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 →

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 →

Nightmare or Living Hell?

Sometimes you (or some people) do things only because it feels so good when you stop. Bashing your head against a wall is one of those things. Moon Trekker (running around or across or round and round on Lantau Island, overnight) is another.

For some inexplicable reason I said yes to being a … an usher? A pointer? In today’s Moonie Trekkie. I stood on corners pointing first in the direction of the finishing point near Pui O beach, and then in the direction of the mini bus that was to take the runners to Tung Chung after some mild celebration (beer, champagne) at – tsk tsk! 6AM!

It was fun! Great! And exhilarating! The people coming in at 6 o’clock were fairly trotting ahead, all full of beans and very gung-ho. The stragglers who staggered across the finishing line closer to 10 were a different story. Talk about knackered! I congratulated myself many times on my good fortune. To bed at midnight the night before after cooking a, I have to say, very good Sichuan meal for eight people, up at 4.30 to clean up after said meal before sauntering leisurely down to the beach with the dogs and then signing up for duty – it certainly beat milling around on mountain tops all night in the dark inelegantly dressed and probably emanating body odour.

I don’t know what this geezer was doing there but I suspect he wasn’t running:

I actually liked the stragglers the best, because they were the happiest to see me, and to hear me say: only four minutes left! The condition they were in it would probably be more like ten minutes, but hey. I wanted to give them hope. And did! Some even managed a weak “thank you” and a half-hearted wave in my general direction. No, actually, they were all surprisingly cheerful and positive considering what they had been through. Some had run (walked) 42 kilometres, others “only” 34. I salute them from the heart.

Nightmare or living hell? Not for me, that’s for sure. I’m happy. And blister-less! 1,300 runners, lots and lots of money for charity, (environmental) – I’m in next year too! From 6 o’clock and as an observer. For the sandwiches are excellent.

行山 (han san – walk mountain)
跑步 (pau bou – run)
大嶼山 (Daai Yu San – Lantau Island)

National Day Extravaganza

October 1st has just gone but all of Hong Kong warmly and resolutely and enthusiastically and revolutionarily welcomed the grand celebration of the great and noble motherland. Pui O’s many newly(?) converted communist party supporters →

Cantonese – The Easiest Language in the World?

When I started learning Cantonese there was no shortage of Chinese people warning me against it. At that time the most common refrain was: “It’s too difficult – for you“. OK, maybe they didn’t emphasise →

肇慶 Beautiful Siu Heng – Great As Long As You Don’t Dabble

Oh China. I love you so much. This is Siu Heng, the town where, on top of the many scraggy crags, there are signs (signage) exhorting people not to “parapet”. No Parapeting! the signs say →

Big Shots in China

威士忌 – Wai si gei (Whisky) 酒店 – jau dim (Hotel) 唔舒服 – m syu fuk (Not well)

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! →

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 →

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 →

I can’t control myself – I must show it: Mister Public Security Uncle photographed by a professional photographer! It was the night before Halloween and I was strolling around Central with my vice-Security officer, Bak →

Just because I’m a Cantonese fundamentalist and don’t want Hong Kong to be taken over by Mandohooligans, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel a huge pull from the wild almost daily. Yes, I’m talking about →

No, not the city Honolulu where I’ve never been. The phenomenon Honolulu! Nestled between a parking house and some building, probably a hole in the ground pounded by pile drivers by now, lies 33 Stanley →

Beer Then Wine, You’ll Be Fine, Wine Then Beer Makes You Queer

everybody knows that. But how about beer, then wine, (Moet Et Chandon, saved since June 7th, thank you Teng and Lok!) then beer, then more beer and some beer? Queer is not a good description. Just – blah. Listless. Unable to concentrate. It doesn’t help that it’s the hottest day of the year and I don’t have air con. Never drink on Mondays! Even if it’s a friend’s birthday. It’s madness.

Still, it could have been worse. It could have been baak jau (Chinese rice spirit) that we were drinking. Actually no, no way. That stuff is so vile, I wouldn’t touch it even if there was nothing else to drink in the world and I hadn’t had a drink in a year. Vile! Death!

There is a recipe in my new book CHILLies! Sichuan Food Made Easy that explains how you should never drink baak jau (白酒 – white “wine”) under any circumstance but if you do, or if you have a normal hangover OR you just like the taste and texture of soft but firm tofu, here’s what to cook.

That book is available so damned soon!

Meanwhile avoid 白酒 (baak jau) like two plagues and a locust swarm. Drink MONS (雪花 -Suet Wah) instead.

香檳 (Heung ban – champagne)

貓0左 (Mao jo – shitfaced)

辣椒 (Lat chiu – chilli)

禮拜一 (Lai baai yat – Monday)