A Little Proddie Placie

Wei wei, it’s finally happening: I’m launching my new book Don’t Joke On The Stairs on Blacksmith Books this week. I actually wrote most of it four years ago and had signed a contract with South China Morning Post Publishing House when that venerable institution suddenly packed it in two weeks before the book was to be published. Vexed? How could I be, when they in the mass email they sent out to all the authors saying breezily that they wouldn’t print any more books, added: “But you are allowed to keep your script.” Oh really!

Well, that what seemed at the time major setback was of course a blessing in disguise, because it allowed me to have some more bizarre, surreal and semi-wild experiences in China to squeeze into the book. In it, you will find out

How to gate-crash a Ketamine party

Why China and Norway are almost identical

What “the slippery are very crafty” really means

How to get around China by train, sleeper bus, horse and camel while staying in the worst hotels because you’re a Hong Kong compatriot

What to write in a self-criticism when you get arrested for spying

How to get into North Korea without a visa

How to hitchhike around the entire country and the etiquette of hitchhiking in China

Don’t Joke On The Stairs is also full of helpful hints when it comes to language learning, as well as containing a useful travel glossary with Chinese characters and their pronunciations in Cantonese and Mandarin. And photos! I mean – what?

So I hope you can swing around the old Honolulu in Stanley street on Thursday night. If you don’t speak Cantonese already, I will teach you the basics. I will also launch my new Canto-teaching DVD Going Native, a two hour extravaganza of film which will take you not only all around China but the world! while learning Cantonese. Oh yeah, Canto will rule the world. But the other languages will be allowed to live too!

Honolulu Coffee and Cake Shop, 33 Stanley street, Central: