Paraguas (Umbrella)

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! This is even better than I had envisaged. It feels indescribably good to walk on cobblestoned streets knowing that the same houses were here 200 years ago. I can’t remember the last time. Even the lower buildings in the ancient-looking cities of Jung Saan (中山）and Toi Saan (台山) in the Pearl River Delta were only built in the early 1900s.

Everybody is so friendly and say Buenos Dias unprompted! A guy in a shop gave me his umbrella because the umbrella shop didn’t open till 11. Yes it’s jolly well raining. This is vexing and rather inconvenient, because the ground is covered in round, really smooth stones. Death lurks around every step.

To be quite honest i think it’s rude to be raining on my holiday, especially torrentially and that on National Day! A bit out of order. Another illusion (Mexico hot, dry) bites the dust.

雨遮 (yu jeh – umbrella)
墨西哥國慶日 （Mak Sai Goh gok heng yat – Mexico’s National Day)
激死人 (Gek sei yan – dead irritating)

Good Weather Likely

A lovely day has begun in the lovely city of Guangzhou and after yesterday’s torrential rain people are pouring out in the streets again. Just outside the hotel I saw this guy relaxing with a →

Owner Of A Broken Face

I’ve finally finished the last chapter (or recipe) in my Sichuan cookery book, a book that isn’t really a book, for can it be a book when it’s only online? If not, what should it →

Donner Und Blitzen Kebab

Drowning in weather! I got up at 5 having slept very little due to the absolutely wild weather that shook my house all night. Apparently the lightning had struck Lantau Island 3,000 times out of →

Communi-Play-Tion

It’s no secret that I love the motherland, China, over all other lands, and not only because of Mons 雪花(Suet Fa – Snow Flower) beer and Sichuan food either. I’ve had more fun there than →

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 →

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 →

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, 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 →

Who Speaks More English, Hong Kong People Or Belgian People?

Here’s one of my students, let’s call him X, taking the gun off some local on one of our outings to southern China. He’s been studying for a while now and has always done very →

It’s Beer O’Clock But Where Is The Good Beer?

I’m running a series on Facebook called Beer Is Beautiful, largely featuring this woman and her associates. And other people I know. The other day I tried ‘beer is beautiful’ in Cantonese in Honolulu Coffee →

When Life Gets You Down, Shoot A Film

Sometimes I’m tempted to give up the whole Cantonese thing. I mean, what’s the point? The Mando behemoth is going to roll Hong Kong and the Cantonese-speaking world into the ground and pour concrete on →

Completely Lost In A Strange City Without Knowing A Word Of The Language

This is the very first photo I had taken of myself in China (a Chelfie?) in 1988. It was in the then famous silk market, no doubt demolished now, and the guy was probably some →

I Must Go To Shenzhen… I Must

It used to be that Shenzhen was a wild party town. For me, that is – I’m sure it still is for the young people of today. Now that former frontier, now settled and comfortably →

SUNDAY: I’m Sorry To Say, Chinese and Western Food Cooking Shall Never Meet

Is it racist to say that Chinese people in China aren’t great at making Western food? That is my experience anyway. And that experience is now almost 28 years. Wow! Not that I have eaten →

New Service For All The Hungry People On Lantau – And The World

I must have mentioned once or twice that I cook Sichuan food which I serve on my, I have to say, beautiful roof terrace overlooking the South China Sea? It’s just that recently I’ve been →

Here’s To Technology Although My Phone Is a Nokia From 2006

Although I may seem like a Luddite with my Nokia and my stubborn insistence of having tangible, physical CDs and DVDs, I actually love technology. The whole internet thing; reaching people all over the world →

Breaking: HK Government Official Stuns World With Harebrained Scheme!

This never happens: A former senior town planner with the Hong Kong government has suggested getting rid of a Hong Kong icon! So novel; where do they get these ideas from? This time it’s the →

Chinese Stuff: Only For Chinese?

Chillies, chopsticks, even cha are they only Chinese things, meant for Chinese people? I’ve had this conversation hundreds of times in the mainland and in Hong Kong, but I somehow didn’t expect to have it →

The End Of The Wall As We Know It

This is probably my favourite spot in all of China – apart from the Lo Wu Shopping Center of course. It’s Jiayuguan Fort far into Gansu province and is said to be the end of →