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 →
Sichuan Food … So Yummy and Right Here in Pui O!
There are as many types of Chinese food as there are people in China; approximately 1.3 billion different dishes at last count. That's more dishes than you and I go through in an average month! →
Don’t Beat Yourself Up! (Let Me Do It)
(None of the people in the photos were quoted – or hurt – during this blog entry) Perhaps it’s inevitable when people are starting to learn Cantonese that they will feel themselves transported back to →
Ordeal of the Year
In January, okay, I admit it, I waited until the first week of February, came my annual ordeal: The visit to the vet. Why ordeal? It’s just some injections, and they’re not even on me. →
Stimulate All Your Senses on Lantau. Yes, all! Sichuan Cooking Course
Chinese New Year saw the Lo Uk Tsuen Country Club full of people coming to learn the basics of Sichuan cooking. Mature and younger, Lantau people and people from as far away as Britain – →
Congratulations, Get Rich!
It’s Chinese new year and the streets (and Facebook) reverberates to foreigners calling out to each other: “KUNG hei fat choi!” For one thing it should be GUNG hei, but hey. The tradition of spelling →
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 →
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)
Successful Filming Extravaganza With Opulent Chair Sitting
The shooting of new, from-scratch Cantonese course CantoNews continues. This time we went to a thrilling location, the luscious OYC Hotel in 肇慶 (Siu Heng) in Guangdong province, a mere four hours’ comfortable train journey →