Have! More!

In yesterday’s article I talked about how expressions containing the word ‘have’ in English hardly ever contain 有 (yau – have) in Cantonese, such as have some Mons (飲雪花 yam Suet Fa – Drink Snow

HAVE!

I love English but sometimes its over-reliance on certain words to describe wildly different things irks me. Take the word have. While it’s nowhere near the top word, as in the word with the most

Good Your Head (Chinese For Advanced Learners)

My daylight hours are starting to fill up with Cant-studs (Cantonese students) coming to my house, and of course I have to offer them something for struggling up all those stairs and paying me. As

Frustrated And A Half!

Finally, after almost a year of writing and researching (the research consisted mostly of doing the dishes) I have finished my new book CHILLies! Sichuan Food Made Easy. It looked so alluring with the iBook

Have You Ever Been To?

While writing about 墨西哥 (Mak Sai Go – Mexico) the other day, I started thinking about other countries I absolutely must go to. The first one on my list is, naturally, North Korea 北韓 (Bak

Even More About That 嗰!

The New China Bookshop in Guangzhou, or actually, the New China Bookshop in general, is a real treasure trove. Look what I found there last weekend, a map of Mexico with all the towns and

Girlie Morning in Nature

Are spiders actually really stupid? I mean they can spin these beautiful webs, masterpieces of engineering and all that, but are they a bit dim all the same? This morning I had the first proper

More About That! 嗰

嗰個人係四川人 (go go yan hai Sei Chyun yan – that piece person is Four River person, that person is from Sichuan) 嗰個人 (go go yan – that piece person). That should be pretty plain sailing

飲茶 The Civilised Lunch

I’ve just travelled 25 minutes there and 25 back just to eat. What, didn’t I have perfectly good ingredients for Sichuan food in my fridge? you ask. Yes, of course. But no matter how good

Train! 火車!

One of the most wonderful of many wonderful things about mainland China is the train. Last weekend we went to Guangzhou for some r and r and it was good, but the best thing was