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 →

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 →

川菜 Sichuan Food, Best On Earth

It’s Sunday morning and I just finished doing the dishes from yesterday’s Sichuan food blowout extravaganza wonder party. Chilli oil tastes wonderful but is a bugger to get off plates and worktops. But it’s worth →

Cabin Fever

Rain, rain and I’m stuck in my office writing a book. I like books, I like writing, but I don’t like being stuck! In times like these, my thoughts inevitably turn to travelling, especially thundering →

Neighbour In The Middle of Nowhere

It was cold, foggy and not without drizzle, yet we were glad to be up so early and by ourselves at this Trollveggen that I had heard so much about but never visited. It looked →

Long Live Cantonese

There’s a big hullabaloo in the South China Morning Post this week. Historian Jason Wordie wrote about the so-called Third Culture Kids (born in one country, moved to Hong Kong, sent to boarding school in →

Taxing, Vexing Taxis

As any newcomer to Hong Kong trying to get a handle on the local language can attest to, taxi drivers are excellent language teachers. At the same time, they can also get very angry if →

Local Uncle Writes Own Language Wrong!!!!!

I have just (“just” meaning three weeks ago) come back from Norway, and while I was there I sent various postcards, among them to an uncle in my village. What, your uncle lives in your →

Change

I needed an excuse to publish this photo. It was taken in Shenzhen (naturally) in what used to be an excellent little forest just across the square from the train station but which is now →

New Cantonese Music Video … Coming!

We had a brilliant day on Sunday, venturing into the wilderness, sacrificing our safety (there were insects and a dead fish) so that YOU will more easily learn Cantonese, the language that sounds like two →

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What Are The Chances?

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 →

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 →

Long Live the Entrepreneurial Spirit! And Beer!

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 →

Finally!!!! CantoNews, Cantonese Podcast For Lantau People, By Lantau People!

Woo-hoo! Finally there’s a podcast dealing only with Lantau issues, made by Lantau people like Carina (ah-Lin) (above) Rudolf (ah-Dak) and Tony (ah-Lei). OK, I admit it. I was planning on podcasts of five minutes →

Sichuan Province, Sichuan Food

Here’s a gaff in my favourite village in all of China, Chuanxing 川興 (Chuen Heng) near famous satellite centre Xichang 西昌 (Sai Cheung) where the moon is rounder and brighter than in the rest of →

SUNDAY: Reasons to Learn Cantonese #11

The other day I made a list of the ten most important reasons, off the top of my head, to learn Cantonese.  Yesterday I found another one. I am a Luddite whose phone, a Nokia →

Incinerator Juggernaut Thunders Forth

Our not always easy to understand government seems to be dead set on this incinerator thing. Needing to “spread the pollution around” they want to build a toxin-spewing monster right outside Pui O Beach, assuring →

Natural Connection

It seems that no one has thought about the deep and intimate connection between the Cantonese language and bluegrass. I wonder why. Well, from now on you’ll be able to groove along to bluegrassy Canto-tunes, →

Easter Podcast With Guest Stars!

Easter was wonderful this year. Good weather and a new restaurant opened on Pui O Beach, the beer was flowing and my recording device was working overtime!

石鼓洲焚化爐 (sek gu chau fan fa lou) – Sek Gu Chau Incinerator – is an expression that strikes terror into the heart of Lantau and Cheung Chau dwellers and should actually do the same to →