Non-white IS The New Black

Oh, whoops, how did a burqa sneak in there? Must have been the word ‘black’. Anyway, so most of my students have the same complaint: No matter how good their Cantonese is, Hong Kong people still answer them in English. There was an interesting take on that on Facebook yesterday: Because it’s so expensive to take English lessons, Chinese in Hong Kong and the mainland try to get their English training where they can: By insisting on answering the people who have spent months and years trying to learn the local language to be polite to locals, in a completely different language.

Fair enough – maybe. But whenever I ask, with increasing stringency I’m ashamed to admit, why the hell they would talk to me in English when I can clearly speak their language, they always answer: “Because I’m afraid you can’t understand.” Nothing about the price of English lessons.

They also say “to be polite.”

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of teaching Cantonese to a Filipino girl and – what do you know? Nobody ever answers her in English. Her problem is the opposite: People treat her as if she should know everything in Chinese already, even when she asks them in English to speak more slowly. Also, nobody has ever uttered to her that ongoing refrain reverberating through offices where there are whitey: Don’t learn Cantonese! It’s too difficult – for you. So if you were ever in any doubt, it’s official: It’s a colour thing.

Brown, black, dark beige: Cantonese is more or less in your genes and you should pick it up between landing at Hong Kong airport and reaching your first destination. White: Impossible. And even if you are white and should happen to speak Cantonese fluently: A lifetime of being applauded for being able to say “Good morning” in Cantonese awaits.

I have only one piece of advice for Caucasian learners of Cantonese: It will never change, BUT if you hang in there, you can still do it. If I can learn it, anyone can learn it. Merry Canto-summer!

Green Island Beer

Hooray! Almost finished with my Sichuan cookbook called What was it again? Cook, something cook, something Sichuan. Something. Anyway, in it I praise that beer so loved and, amazingly, hated, all over the world: “Tsingtao”. →

Sunday

And the living is easy, except for managers of the Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau! We must slog away even on Sundays in the never-ending quest to make Cantonese a world language. Sunday in →

Don’t Prawn Me, I’m Only The Banjo Player

Two days ago I did a Sichuan dinner for 13 people, and finally cracked the secret to chilli prawns after trying for ages. I will now share the secret with you, as well as some →

Smoke Comes Out Your Arse

Smoke! Is it just me or has Central become unbearable after the smoking ban was implemented? I’ve become one of those middle-aged hags who sniffily wave her hand in front of her face while walking, →

咩呀？ Wot?

This is one of the reasons why I love Cantonese: 咩! (Meeh, wot? or what kind of…) My theory: It started out as 乜嘢 (mat yeh, what thing. As in: 你飲乜嘢呀？Lei yam mat yeh ah? →

Another Petrashune Down

A sad day in the country club today! My banjo teacher, Austin, （亞天，Ah-Tin) came for his last Cantonese lesson/to provide banjo lesson. We recorded the instrumental to our next Cantonese Bluegrass music video (don’t know →

Priorities

I remember when I first came to hong Kong in 1989. The 垃圾蟲 (lap sap chung, litter bug) campaign had just started. Now people would be made to feel bad about littering. Woo-hoo! Nothing seemed →

The Day After

It’s difficult for me when holidays suddenly pop up in the middle of the week. Yesterday I felt it was Sunday （禮拜日，lai bai yat) all day although it was Wednesday (禮拜三 lai bai saam), and →

Thank You For Taking Us Back

Woo-hoo, woo-hoo! July 1st, the day of Hong Kong’s rebirth! I think it’s so kind of the mainland to accept us back in the fold after all the horrible things we have said and done →

Thank You, Norwegian Writer

Today I want to publicly thank a Norwegian writer named Are Kalvø who in the year 2007 had a brilliant idea which inspired me no end. He would travel all around Norway and eat in →

Big Shots

Bunk Demythed! I Mean Myth Debunked!

Last weekend a group of three ecstatic revellers hopped on the ferry to Jung Saan (Zhongshan) and got straight in a taxi at the ferry pier and darted into the hinterland. In the lovely, slightly →

Guangdong Province! The Best Province with the Best People. It’s Yuge!

Guangdong is the best province in China, and not because of Cantonese! It’s got the friendliest people and the best hovelage. And today I’m off to savour her charms again! I just thought I’d share →

CantoNews 8!!! Live from Garden Cafe (With Sandwiches)

What does this photo of an excellent and ridiculously inexpensive haircut have to do with CantoNews? Nothing! I just like it. In this segment, the venerable Cassette and I visit the Garden Cafe in Pui →

Wild Shenzhen Extravaganza

I always have a good time in Shenzhen’s famed Lo Wu Shopping Centre, even after several hours of “missy missy looking, you buy sunglass okay.” Still, I could really do with less nagging. My student →

CantoNews: Cecilie and Nick Venture Forth to Graze

… all the way to the throbbing metropolis of Mui Wo – La Pizzeria to be exact!

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 →

Listen to the interview with famous Lantau author Jane Huong who isn’t Vietnamese or Malaysian, but married to a Hong Kong guy who wanted to spell his surname (Hung) differently from the herd. And talking →

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 →

Yesterday I had an email from a … person, who said: “I sobbed vehemently when I saw your last Sunday Morning Post entry had come and gone.” Me too, mate, me too. Except I didn’t →

Here is an interview I did for Radio Lantau a couple of weeks ago, with Edward Bunker from Mui Wo. Every single person I told this to said the same: “Oh, he’s lovely!” Not a →