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I’ve Created a Fun-ster

Here is my victim ah-Dak holding forth for a captive audience in a backstreet in Guangzhou. It moved my FUNdaMENTAList heart, I can tell you that. I was especially chuffed to hear him say (about me:) 佢中文講得好好 Keui jungman gong dak hou hou (she speaks Chinese very well.) No, not because he said that! Because he used the 得 （dak) to change the adjective 好 (good) into the adverb 好（well)!

And he said it with such elegance, such nonchalance that I almost cried. Almost, OK! But after years and years of hearing students, right in front of my face, ordering for example a cup of tea in English from the Chinese waiter after months of talking Chinese with me; well, you can imagine my feeling.

Here is ah-Dak again, getting a 3 yuan haircut while chatting away animatedly and with little fear. It’s so easy to be a man. Just sit down, adjust the clipper and zoom away. 3 yuan, five minutes and big success, both morally and linguistically! And how fun it was to watch.

You too can be like ah-Dak, saving money on haircuts and chatting effortlessly with locals in Cantonese. Start lessons with Happy Jellyfish Language Bureau today! You live abroad? No problem. We’ll do it on SKYPE.

Chinese Characters

Chinese characters (normal, not simplified) are beautiful, aren’t they? Even ordinary words like ‘toilet’ look somehow elevated to a higher sphere when they’re written with a brush, or printed for that matter. Not that the →

肇慶 Beautiful Siu Heng – Great As Long As You Don’t Dabble

Oh China. I love you so much. This is Siu Heng, the town where, on top of the many scraggy crags, there are signs (signage) exhorting people not to “parapet”. No Parapeting! the signs say →

Big Shots in China

威士忌 – Wai si gei (Whisky) 酒店 – jau dim (Hotel) 唔舒服 – m syu fuk (Not well)

Here is an excellent way to practise and learn more Cantonese: Going to the market with your very own Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau. This is how it works: First we sit down with →

Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau: The only Cantonese course in town where the tea cups match your outfit Why learn Cantonese? 1. It’s FUN! 2. It’s the local language of Hong Kong and it’s →

The last few days I’ve been trying to catalogue my films. When I say “trying to catalogue” I mean “watching Breaking Bad to get ideas for angles, film techniques etc”. Breaking Bad – it’s really →

A highlight of my recent trip to the USA was visiting a bourbon distillery. A lowlight, or, shall we say, nadir, was getting drunk on bourbon the week before. It was so good to see →

USA! A land of Christmas and interestingly decorated cafés. A land of truck stops and rolling hills, big roads, big cars and big trolleys for people who are too fat to walk. The first time →

FINALLY! I had had absolutely no yam cha (afternoon tea and dim sum) since September 14 and was starting to see double. Although I had plenty of deep-fried, comforting Southern food on my blaze-through of →

Oh! Oh! Oh! USA! Talk about the exact opposite of Mexico – at least Mexico City and Horn Cow. In those two places, everyone lives behind high walls and sturdy gates. And according to my →

Back Again So Soon?

I can’t believe I’m home again! The two weeks in Mexico and the US seemed like two months because there was so much happening, and everything mine eyes looked upon I saw for the first time. That’s the secret to a long, or long-seeming life: To look only on new things every day. Sigh. Now I’m home again, a typhoon is coming, apparently, and everything’s sad and anti-climactic.

So now it’s back to teaching Cantonese and cooking Sichuan food. But if you can’t be arsed to drag yourself over to my house in Pui O, why not cook for yourself? It’s easy when you follow my cookbook CHILLies! Sichuan Food Made Easy. Which you can get by clicking on the link and also on this website.

唔開心 (m hoi sam – unhappy)
打瘋 (Da fung – hit wind/typhoon [as a verb])
屋企 (Uk kei – home)
兩個禮拜 (Leung go laibai – two weeks)