Preview of Documentary

This is 54 seconds of our three week trip. More later in the documentary you can download from this site!

Bunk Demythed! I Mean Myth Debunked!

Last weekend a group of three ecstatic revellers hopped on the ferry to Jung Saan (Zhongshan) and got straight in a taxi at the ferry pier and darted into the hinterland. In the lovely, slightly →

Guangdong Province! The Best Province with the Best People. It’s Yuge!

Guangdong is the best province in China, and not because of Cantonese! It’s got the friendliest people and the best hovelage. And today I’m off to savour her charms again! I just thought I’d share →

CantoNews 8!!! Live from Garden Cafe (With Sandwiches)

What does this photo of an excellent and ridiculously inexpensive haircut have to do with CantoNews? Nothing! I just like it. In this segment, the venerable Cassette and I visit the Garden Cafe in Pui →

Wild Shenzhen Extravaganza

I always have a good time in Shenzhen’s famed Lo Wu Shopping Centre, even after several hours of “missy missy looking, you buy sunglass okay.” Still, I could really do with less nagging. My student →

Different For Chinese

As I was looking through my old columns from South China Morning Post trying to get some other newspaper gigs (do newspapers even exist anymore?) I found the above story from Norway. Allowed only 450 →

Last Column

Yesterday I had an email from a … person, who said: “I sobbed vehemently when I saw your last Sunday Morning Post entry had come and gone.” Me too, mate, me too. Except I didn’t →

Happy Hong Kong Celebration of the Glorious Return to the Motherland Day Extravaganza!

July 1st! July 1st! That day in year zero for Hong Kong, 1997, it was rather wet. OK, it torrentially bucketed down for about three weeks before and after that momentous day. Coincidence? I think →

Beautiful Day On “Dark” Side

It’s so much fun to have friends visiting Hong Kong, especially when the day they arrive kicks off a week of unprecedented beautiful weather! I shouldn’t say unprecedented; the weather was probably like this every →

How Now, Guangdong Prov?

I’m just about to write my last column ever for South China Morning Post; ever! When I was told the page would be discontinued, I was so sad. How now would I be able to →

Running Interview Live from Garden Café

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed the beautiful and delightful Zein Williams, mother of three and tireless champion for the Nepali people about her life and work – with the earthquake victims especially – →

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Philadelphia Offers Freedom From Mando

So this plan of mine to eat my way through all the Chinese restaurants in the USA is kind of almost working out. A little. I think I’ll be able to do about 90%, including rest stops. (I’m on a Land Rover road trip!!!!) The funny thing is that before I left, I was warned off this plan by many Americans. “It’s awful, not at all like in Hong Kong!” “You’ll get super fat and die!” “You’ll puke yourself to death!” etc.

The truth is of course that the US is full of Chinese cooking Chinese food for other Chinese and themselves. My well-meaning friends were picturing me having Chinese buffet dinners in shitholes, instead of just ordering what I want from waiters) The food so far has been perfectly acceptable; certainly every bit as edible as Canto-food (which I find bland and really suitable for babies). The definite highlight of the Chinese culinary extravaganza so far was the Lau Tsin something restaurant in Philadelphia, and it was even yam cha. Excellent! Succulent! Enormous prawns! Everybody spoke Cantonese!!! And the owner, I realised after looking for a while at the Cantonese opera videos rolling across the many TV screens suspended around the screechingly red and gold room, was in fact the star of the videos!

We got on like a house on fire, and I forgot I wasn’t in Hong Kong to the extent that I didn’t give them a 200% or whatever tip.

Ouch! My two friends were mortified. But really – I was fresh off the boat, innit! However, I should have known this wasn’t Hong Kong or any other Chinese place when I saw Chinese people eating from plates instead of bowls.

Earlier in the day we had been shooting the latest Cantonese – The Movie installment near the Liberty Bell, or Freedom Clock as I call it. There was a huge Falun Gong banner there with some followers kneeling on the grass, meditating. Two mainland women were standing chatting nearby. Mr. Public Security Uncle went up to them, sternly pointing out (in Mando, natch) that where they were standing was not a designated standing area. They both looked a bit stunned. “Oh, here isn’t allowed? Oh, all right…” I tell you, you can take a mainlander out of the mainland! Etc! So this is how to keep them in check: Speak harshly and carry a big moustache.