Chinese New Year Extravaganza

羊年， yeung nin. Year of the sheep, goat, ram, lamb, ewe, sow What? Why not keep it simple? Cantonese is simple and easy. YEUNG!

Start taking Cantonese lessons with Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau today and soon you’ll be sitting in an excellent Guangdong restaurant eating excellent food and addressing the staff in Cantonese!

Romance is the order of the day. Two words of Cantonese and the locals go crazy

The dim sum in the mainland tastes much better

You can win at cards and conquer the world – all you need is a white cat

Mainland hotels are much better and more tastefully appointed than most hotels

The beer is weak but great

Finally you’ll find tables big enough to play cards

The best way to travel has no walls and no doors. Contraption!

Outcast – Hallowed Headquarters Honolulu

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Woo-hoo everybody everywhere! I have finally, after mourning fickle Englishwoman ‘Ah-Sa’s absence for almost three years, started making podcasts again!!!

I thought it fitting to stage the first one in hallowed headquarters Honolulu in Stanley street, Central. Ah-Lei and I discuss weather phenomena while welcoming new waiters, one of whom is not Mister Yu

Green and Blue

Yesterday my sister in Norway skyped me. She said she was sitting in the garden for the first time this summer! On July 12th! The rest of the time it had been raining or too →

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, →

打風 Typhoon!!!!!

What do cows do when a typhoon signal 8 is raging, I wonder? T8: 八號風球(baat hou fung kao – 8 number wind ball) The scourge of Lantau. Not! As usual, the weather bureau says we’re →

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 →

More about NOT to be

Summer has come to Pui O beach and with it a slew of … I think they call them ‘pseudo-models’? and their entourages of dozens of photographers and light-reflector-holders, all men, for some reason. Referring →

To 係 or 唔係 – is that the question?

Cantonese 101: There is no yes and no! This can create confusion. Of course, many people want there to be a yes (at least) and so they have created a thing where 係 (hai) means →

Caught Napkin

I discovered a new Canto word this week! And I won’t forget it, because I learnt it in a situation and from a live person, not a dictionary or app. So I do this Sichuan →

Autumn in Tokyo

Wei, language enthusiasts everywhere, or should I say: Konichiwa! Or Bunka kakumei! (Cultural revolution) Yes, I’ve been to Tokyo （東京）and what a lovely trip it was. The air was so fresh, the train stations so beautifully designed, and everyone, I discovered to my delight, talked to me in Japanese!

What, that’s not so strange, you think, seeing they were Japanese? I agree. It shouldn’t be strange. But considering the fact that my Japanese is limited to the old “where is the …” “do you have …” “Is there a …” “Togetherness in nakedness” (hadakano tsukiyai) “honourable beer please” ( o biru kudasai) and commenting favourably on the weather, it was amazing that suddenly I was in Japan having long conversations in non-existent Japanese about really non-interesting things!

Because guess what, if you can say a few words in Japanese, people think you can actually speak it, and they also respect your efforts to learn the language by treating you as if you can. And that’s why foreigners who live in Japan for any period of time, inevitably do learn the language.

I was thinking about that as I touched down at shiny Chek Lap Kok (should be pronounced “Gok”) airport,(did you know HK’s airport is named after a kind of fish?) at midnight and after having left my friend’s house in Yokohama about 12 hours earlier so a little bit tired and worn out.

I tried to lift my luggage off the conveyor belt but happened to stand behind a kind of barrier (they use to … avoid stampedes at the airport?) and a lime-green jacket person immediately galloped forth.

Him: “Meh-dem! Tekk kee-ah! Tekk kee-ah!” (Madam, take care, take care)
Me: 你唔駛講英文 （You don’t have to speak English)
"Tekk kee-ah! Is danger!”
講廣東話呀，唔該。 （Speak Cantonese please)
“Meh-dem! Tekk kee-ah!”
你唔識講廣東話呀。 （You don’t speak Cantonese?)
Him: 識！ (I do)

Of course he did. That’s why he got a job at the airport. With a sigh – back to people who treat me like an idiot AND think I can’t lift my own tiny suitcase – I headed for the exit, where there was a transport service desk. Spake:

"唔該，幾點鐘有巴士去梅窩呀？" (Excuse me, what time is the bus to Mui Wo?)
He looked at me as if I’d said something completely different, like “I’m going to disembowel you now.” I smiled pleasantly and patiently like a cobra, repeating the question. He fell back to earth with a thud.
“Wann teh-tee.” （1.30)
你講乜野呀？ （What did you say?)
“Wann teh-tee.”
我唔識聽英文，你講乜野呀？ （I don’t understand English, what did you say?)
“Wann teh-tee. At duh mitt-lie.” (at the midnight)
講廣東話呀，唔該。 (Speak Cantonese, please.) Yes, childish and ridiculous, I know. But the reason I speak Cantonese today, is that I never engage in English conversation with HK people. Ever. It’s become a habit and I will spend the time it takes to get local people to speak to me in the local language.

Now he was starting to look panic-stricken. I again asked what time the bus to Mui Wo left, speaking slowly and clearly – perhaps he didn’t understand my normal, kind of street-y Cantonese because he was too refined? This time he wrote 1.30 on a piece of paper, pointing wordlessly to the number. Yes, yes, just because someone can speak a language fluently doesn’t mean they can understand a single word, right?

So that was a sad homecoming. Especially since this kind of behaviour from HK people is so far in the past I can’t remember it anymore. It’s probably because he worked in an airport that his brain just packed it in and refused to do the decent thing when faced with the impossible, the one thing that cannot be: White face uttering yellow words.

I can see why some of my students give up, while I just dig in deeper. But if it’s any comfort, there comes a day in all Cantonese learners’ life when the person you’re talking to in Cantonese just answers you in that language as if you were a normal human being. That happens all the time to me now. And that’s why the airport incident made me so incredibly disappointed. Especially after having been treated so well in Japanese, which I don’t speak at all!