About Me

Whitefella Australian learning how to be gwai lo (鬼佬) in Hong Kong

Thursday, August 11, 2011

I love my Cantonese class - 我鍾意廣東話班

An apple for the teacher?
As I mentioned, I have been studying a proper Cantonese class through Chinese University, and I am amazed at how much I have learnt in just a few weeks. It has helped tie together all the little bits and pieces of 廣東話 that I had taught myself over the last six to eight months, and has given me a grammatical context within which to frame it all.
I feel much braver about asking for things out and about, having spent some hours now practicing boring conversations with my classmates. Today I felt able to go and ask the person staffing the desk in my building whether they had a photocopier and whether I could make some copies. Though I didn't do so perfectly fluently, of course, I could conceive of doing so, and it worked out okay, even if I couldn't totally understand the directions to the nearest copy shop!
Along the way I pick up curious bit of information about Cantonese of the sort that I enjoy. I like the way all languages, except perhaps Esperanto, have their little quirks. So at class yesterday I asked why the character for 'noon' that we'd been taught (晝 or dzau - mid flat tone) was different from the one I'd been noticing on parking signs when they say things like 'no parking 7-10 pm', which was clearly different (午). I was told by Crystal, the teacher, that the one I have seen around is the written form, whereas the one that we'd been taught is the spoken form. Okay, I can understand that, but then, if it's a spoken form, then why does it have a character to represent it? How does that work? According to Crystal, perhaps if they were writing the word 'noon' in a very informal context, such as a game show on TV, they might use the spoken form. Fair enough, but then why is it a more complicated character to write, if it's more colloquial? A little mystery that I may just let go for now, as I try and learn a more basic understanding of the language!


Sunday, August 7, 2011

'Welcome to the future!'

The other day, while looking for the art gallery in Harbour City that I'd read about, I decided to check its location on what I thought was one of those standard electronic shopping centre maps.
I touched the screen and wondered why it was taking so long to load (it was probably no more than fifteen seconds, but you know how long that feels when you're waiting for something to load). Suddenly up pops a window containing a genuine customer service person, in real time, no less. I was too surprised to do anything but blurt out my question, 'Where's the art gallery?', in English, as I don't know the words for art gallery yet. In excellent English he explained where I should go, as if he were standing right there next to me. As he did, he underlined these directions by writing the name of a prominent store near the gallery, in some mysterious fashion so that it appeared across the screen in front of me, handwritten. After thanking him in Cantonese, I wandered off, and sure enough, it was just where he'd described.
The art itself was an anti-climax. I felt like I'd just seen the shape of the future, with virtual helpers popping up where you need them to give you assistance and then disappearing silently and swiftly once they are done. Of course the technology isn't quite that smooth, but it certainly felt like it was close at that moment.
Have I been watching too much 'Big Bang Theory'? Is my inner-nerd showing through?