Saturday Fun (星期六趣味)

For some time how, I have been posting here various jokes forwarded to me by my friends or extracted from the internet.. But to date, I have never yet posted anything which moves. So I thought it might be interesting to introduce a little change today. Everyone thinks and says that the dialect we speak in Hong Kong is Guangdong dialect (廣東話). Strictly speaking, it is NOT that at all! It's just the dialect of Guangzhou  (廣府話). You don't believe me? Watch this video which I find not only entertaining but educational as well.

Don't we hear all those kinds of accents all the time amongst the cleaning workers, waiters, shopkeepers or customers or the parents of some of our friends and colleagues?  Whether or not you do, have fun detecting the subtle differences in the way they pronounce familiar Chinese words and have a nice weekend.

Book Exhibition turned Art Exhibition! (書展成畫展)

Life always springs surprises upon us when you least expect it. That's exactly what happened at this year's HK Book Exhibition. When I was looking for some travel books for my coming trip to Xinjiang at the booth of that province, I was astounded at the originality of some of the works there on display. The paintings were a cross between a painting and calligraphy in Chinese ink. I never saw such work before. They were done by an old but very energetic artist from Inner Mongolia. He told me that it was the very first time that any artist's work is being sold directly by any Chinese state authorities.  The price tag of the largest calligraphic work there being sold is HK$300,000 whilst each small painting cost about HK6,000 and each single character calligraphic work $500. The artist is called 常浣成. But he prefers to call himself 浣成, omitting his surname. I stopped at his booth and stayed there almost an hour, admiring his calligraphic-painting, talking to him and watching him create some work on the spot.

 

This is a horse drawn carriage.

Saturday Fun (星期六笑料)

很多歷史學家都把秦始皇說成是一個暴君，但暴君也好，不是暴君也好，我們無法否認他在中國史上確實做了三大好事，第一是擴建了舉世觸目的萬里長城，讓我們有機會在老外面前充滿自豪的說這是在唯一人造衛星照片中看得見的人類建築物，第二是统一了六國的貨幣及度量衡制度，讓中國人能大量減少時間作出種種覆雜的計算，讓他們能專心一致的做他們最心愛的活動，即計算在損人利己的原則下計算計算計算，獲得最大的利益，第三就是统一了中國的文字，但好在沒有统一中國的方言，否則將會平白浪費了中國人巨量的笑話資源。單就他老人家在這方面的手下留情這一項，就值得我們這些龍的傳人向他作出最至誠的膜拜了！否則如何能有如下週末趣味?!

1.    茶餐廳 "柯打"

三個男人在北京金湖港式茶餐廳喝下午茶，點了三個老婆餅，兩杯奶茶，一杯凍檸水。
新來的服務員用 "廣東話" 重複講多一次以確認"柯打": “您地三個老婆病，兩個拉柴，一個凍撚死? ”。