Human Nature – It’s A Wonder Innit

I’ve never even pretended to have any insight into the human mind and its workings. Everything people say, do and think is a source of constant bafflement for me.

But I know one thing about people: They will always do the opposite of what I tell them. In that they are not unlike my dog Piles. If we’re on the beach and I say for example: “Piles, don’t eat that three day dead fish and puke it up later all over the living room floor,” then that’s exactly what he’ll do.

So I’m not at all surprised, when I tell my helper to take Piles for a one hour walk, that she tidies my underwear drawer instead.

Or that she, when I tell her not to use binliners or plastic bags for rubbish but empty the kitchen rubbish bucket straight into the communal rubbish bin (already with thick black bin liner) thus saving one layer of plastic, takes in binliners from outside, pours the rubbish into it and leaves the whole thing on the kitchen floor.

I’m not at all surprised, when my Canto students ask me what’s the best way to learn Cantonese and I tell them talking to some of the 7 million free teachers milling around Hong Kong, ( the old “talking and listening” technique they used as a child to learn their mother tongue in fact), that they instead get Lonely Planet’s Cantonese glossary and only ever talk English with Chinese people, reserving their Cantonese for me.

And when people congregate on my roof for a Sichuan meal and ask me where the ashtrays are and I tell them just to chuck their cigarette butts on the floor (of the roof) because my roof is the Free State Of China and I’ll sweep up everything the next day and isn’t it lovely to be able to chuck stuff once in a while – then I’m not at all surprised that they don’t chuck a single fag end but instead push them into the soil of my flower pots, poisoning the plants.

Not suprised at all. But maybe a little bit baffled.

Then again I don’t listen to what people tell me either.

Epiphany

But of course!!!! Now I see clearly. The answer has been right under my nose, literally, for years.

I have complained many times, both in this forum and in general, about Hong Kong (and increasingly, mainland) people’s irritating and not a little insulting habit of answering in a completely different language when addressed in Cantonese.

When asked why they inevitably answer: “I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand, ” which is even more insulting.

Yesterday, however, I found the real reason: They’ve been brainwashed to death since childhood. Why haven’t I put two and two together before!

I was getting on the ferry and behind me were a couple with their young child in a tram. I mean pram. Feeling particularly benevolent I said to the child: “細佬, 你好! 你去邊呀. ” wherupon the parents, like millions of parents before them, started prodding the poor tyke and pointing at me, screaming: “Say ha-lou! Say ha-lou!” in a kind of English, in that unnaturally high-pitched, over-bright way that some parents think is easier for children to understand.

The kid looked rather put out and said nothing, certainly not “ha-lou”, so I walked on quickly, cursing myself for even trying.

Then: Bang! Epiphany.

But of course: This “say ha-lou” thing happens every but every every every bloody single time I speak to a child. Therefore it is to be presumed that all parents do it to all children all the time. The habits rammed down one’s throat in childhood are difficult if not impossible to break, and so it is that Hong Kong people, like linguistic Pavlov’s dogs, on seeing whitey invariably break into English. Or Honglish.

It’s an involuntary reflex, like closing your eyes when someone approaches your face at high speed wielding a pair of scissors.

To understand everything is to forgive everything, allegedly. So will I now treat people who answer me in a completely different language when I address them in Cantonese, with more compassion? Probably not. No, definitely not. But from now on I’ll go straight to the root of the problem: The “say ha-lou” parents. Hoi hoi, I’m going to turn this thing around, you’ll see! And in twenty years we’ll have a whole generation answering people in the same language in which they’ve been addressed!

Halleluja.

Beautiful Dudes: Modesty Is Very Becoming

This dude was sitting behind me as I gave a lecture on quacked out a few words in Cantonese in Ye Olde Teaee Shoppee last night. That place is highly recommended by the way.

Smack in the middle of Central, in Wellington street to be exact, the 欒 香 園 咖 啡 室 (Happy Fragrant Garden Coffee parlour) (which isn’t a coffee parlour at all but a greasy spoon, ) features ridiculously low prices, fairly insane staff (one drunk from 10 am) and a laid-back atmosphere.

That’s where I build up my secret guerrilla force to fight back against the evil hegemony of Mandarin.

Anyway, this beautiful guy was sitting behind me, blogworthy. I said “You’re so handsome, can I take your photograph?” but the poor guy kept ducking from side to side – he thought I wanted to immortalise the tiles behind him.

How modest can you get?

One Step Forward, 1.3 billion Steps Back

Not that I smoke joints anymore but I do get disillusioned sometimes about my life goal which is to make Cantonese a world language. Here I was all happy about getting more and more students whom I can Canto-groom, thus making my dream of world domination a reality, and then I have to realise that there’s a province right under my nose which is hard at work making my dream come to nought. Zip zero and all that.

The province I’m talking about is Guangdong, home, nay, cradle of the very Cantonese language without which I wouldn’t be here. But as I’m toiling away with the spreading of the sacred Canto-word, it seems that Guangdong is giving up the holy Canto-ghost.

Last weekend I went to Long Tsuen (Dragon River) in the north-ish of the province and: Mandarin has become the new English! It used to be that if you spoke to very Canto-looking people they answered you in English. Now it’s bloody Mandarin! I address people in my Norwegian accented and therefore Canto-sounding Cantonese, and they answer me in Mandarin. Putong bloody hua.

I even met a couple who were obviously Canto natives; they spoke Cantonese to each other. But to their child they only spoke awfully accented Putonghua, not even wanting the child to learn the language in the province in which they live! I asked them why and they said they didn’t want their child to learn Cantonese.

This is going on all over the province. Will boring, communist party meeting, set in stone Mandarin win the day after all? Stand up, ye people of Hong Kong, soon to be the last bastion of Canto! I am thoroughly disillusioned and want to kill myself – linguistically at least. I have said many times that it’s no fun fighting a downhill battle, but this? It’s like two Hong Kong parents talking to their children in awfully accented English, not wanting them to learn the language in which … hang on, that’s already happening.

What is it with Cantonese, the most fun, vibrant, happening language on earth, that makes everyone want to kill it off?

Well it will be over my dead, stinking, putrefying body, that’s for sure. Stand up to be counted all you people out there who don’t want the fascist, dull, we-rule-and-own-the world, nationalistic, anti-fun-and-variety, support-every-awful-regime and kill-all-initiative language Mandarin, to win. Having lots of money, killing the whole world with fumes and being able to host a big sporting event isn’t everything you know.