Its Name Was Amber, It Was A Vomit…

Do you see that lake? That was a green and throbbing grassland only yesterday. Surely this must be an amber rainstorm? 黃色暴雨 (wong sek bou yu – yellow colour violent rain)(That’s right! The surname Wong means yellow!). Or maybe 黑色暴雨 (hak sek bou yu – black colour violent rain)? Whatever it is, I hope it’ll jolly well stop soon as I have to do some laundry and my washing machine is on the roof, running on electricity…

Talking of amber, on my last birthday (or I should say latest birthday; I really don’t want to die yet) I received an interesting and rather unusual present: Whale vomit! Also known as ambergris! I had never heard of ambergris (grey amber) but now I know everything about how the whales puke all over the world (but in the sea) and this stuff kind of drifts along for years until someone finds it and uses it in perfume. Except now people mostly use synthetic stuff, as they probably got tired of waiting for whales to vomit.

When I opened the package I just saw the letters BERG and thought ‘that’s nice! My surname’. But when I realised it was part of amBERGris and that it was the whale that had inspired my kind friend to hunt down the vomit. Because Norwegian – whale, right? Whale meat tastes great, by the way. Almost as great as ambergris smells.

鯨魚 (keng yu – whale fish)(I know, I know. Mammal.)
灰色 (fui sek – ash colour (grey))
嘔 (au – puke)

and finally, the word you’ve always wanted to know: Ambergris! 龍涎香！(long yin heung – Dragon Spittle Fragrance)

Quite frankly I think you ought to take Cantonese lessons from me. Then you can not only learn Cantonese (a skill which will transform your life in Hong Kong and not only in a bad way) but also meet the kind of people that give whale vomit as gifts. Your life will be the richer for it.