China Toilet Groove (Contains Video)

Everyone who travels in China for more than, say, five minutes, has something to say about her toilets.

But I stand by my column (above) – they are nothing! Nothing, compared to only a few years ago. Here’s one:

Inside, or rather, behind the corrugated wall, was a deep ditch, not at all empty, with two narrow planks balanced across it. One slip of a toe and I wouldn’t have been here today.

Now? Nothing! It’s almost impossible to fall into anything and drown anywhere.

The last big China trip I went on, to northern Yunnan province, this was the worst toilet we found:

It was a kind of trough that wasn’t we suspected, rinsed out all that often. And yes, it did smell. Ironically this was the only toilet we had to pay to use.

Talking of toilets, now you can learn Cantonese through the medium of song!

我要去廁所 – O yiu heui chiso (I have to go to the toilet)
廁所有冇廁紙 – Chiso you mou chiji (Is there toilet paper in the toilet)
大陸廁所而家唔錯 – Dai Luk chiso yiga m cho (Mainland toilets are now not bad)

It’s A Miracle, Isn’t It?

I love my house, my beach and my island (Lantau Island in Hong Kong) but sometimes I wish it was just a little bit closer to Shenzhen! Going there is, quite frankly, a bit of a drag. For years I used to take the ferry to Central, then the Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui and then a taxi to Hung Hom station before finally getting on the train to Shenzhen. This trip took more than two hours.

Then a Lantau taxi driver, who else, told me about the direct bus from Tung Chung (pronounced DUNG Chung, helloooo) that doesn’t go all the way to Lo Wu, admittedly, but still shaves an hour off the travel time. Since then my life has been much better. I’m on that bus as we speak, writing this as we cross the Tsing Ma Bridge in beautiful, sparkling clear weather.

Isn’t it amazing that one can sit on a moving bus and write stuff that at the click of a button can reach the whole world within a second? Yes! Amazing! I can’t get over it.

Of course the bus can never beat the train, but on the other hand the people running the bus services in the mainland aren’t as zealous as those on the train, for example when it comes to hair-related crime:

深圳 （Sam Jan – Deep Drain/Shenzhen)
羅湖 (Lo Wu – Net Lake)
青馬大橋 (Tseng Ma Daai Kiu – Green Horse Big Bridge/Tsing Ma Bridge. so called because it goes from 青衣, Tsing Yi [green clothes] to 馬灣, Ma Wan [Horse Bay])

SUNDAY – Go Home! 返屋企

Last night I started watching the third season of Orange Is The New Black, an American show about life in a women’s prison. The first two seasons were pretty riveting in a ‘far too many →

好忙呀！ Busy!

I’m cooking for eight people tonight and I’m really looking forward to it. I will make Beer O’Clock Dumplings, Chicken a la Water Buffalo and Kung Fu Cucumbers, – among other things. Five other things, →

Don’t Leave Me!

This morning I had some people from my village coming over for a dose of Cantonese, and since it was raining dog shit (落狗屎 – lok gau si [raining heavily]) we discussed the weather, well, →

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). →

NOKIA I Praise Thee Again

(Of course the phone the geezer in the photo isn’t talking on a Nokia while… resting? but it’s definitely some kind of phone.) But Nokia: Yesterday a guy driving through Pui O gave me a →

Our Series Unusual Gifts

In our popular series Unusual Gifts we proudly present Sungflower Fream. What is this sungflower fream, you may ask? Why, it’s of course a notebook! The day my friend Jo gave me this gift, I →

Torture Chamber Of Death

A couple of weekends ago I had the privilege of going to Guangzhou with three fun people: F, J and AW. The following debacle ensued. (See article below) What didn’t make it into the piece →

SUNDAY

Last night I went to a party that turned into something of a name-dropping fest. People had met Lady Gaga, various representatives of the Hong kong government, etc. I thought: Lady Gaga has a job →

Möre About Bööks 書

In all the (sad lack of) hullaballooooo about publishing my latest book online, I completely forgot I have published two books before. For the Cantonese learner and perhaps other people interested in China, Don’t Joke →

Last HAVE! For now

I just thought I’d get in some product placement before lunchtime! To which you’d probably respond: 你有冇攪錯呀！(Lei yau mou gaau cho ah – you must be joking!) That’s right, there is no ‘have’ or ‘not →

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