Cantonese – The Easiest Language in the World?

When I started learning Cantonese there was no shortage of Chinese people warning me against it. At that time the most common refrain was: “It’s too difficult – for you“. OK, maybe they didn’t emphasise →

Enormous Oversight

About those language teaching videos (one Cantonese for beginners, one Cantonese for the more adventurous and, yes! I admit it! Even a survival Mandarin video called Stay Grounded) – all these years they’ve had this →

Big Shots in China

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

Yesterday I dragged myself up Lantau Peak to scatter the ashes of a dear friend who died in April. It really made me admire even more those brave souls who participated in the Moontrekker thing →

Yesterday I got a new student and bugger me if he wasn’t … Mexican! I mean, what are the chances? Before I went to Mexico, I had only ever met three Mexicans: Hector, a guy →

So on Saturday I hosted a Sichuan dinner for twelve people, three of whom called and said they were lost. I had to rush out in mid-stuffing of dumplings to fetch them. (It was the →

Woo-hoo! Finally there’s a podcast dealing only with Lantau issues, made by Lantau people like Carina (ah-Lin) (above) Rudolf (ah-Dak) and Tony (ah-Lei). OK, I admit it. I was planning on podcasts of five minutes →

No, not the city Honolulu where I’ve never been. The phenomenon Honolulu! Nestled between a parking house and some building, probably a hole in the ground pounded by pile drivers by now, lies 33 Stanley →

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 →