Join long-time Hong Kong resident and Cantonese fundamentalist Cecilie Gamst Berg in a new book, Don't Joke on the Stairs, How I Leant to Navigate China by Breaking Most of the Rules. She ploughs through the non-stop surreal-fest that is today's China, stopping occasionally to ruminate about the travails of trying to make Cantonese a world language. In this book, you'll find answers to questions about China:
-- What does “the slippery are very crafty” really mean?
-- What's the etiquette for hitch-hiking if cars are really small?
-- What's the best way to gatecrash a Ketamine party?
-- Indeed, what is modern party etiquette in China?
-- How do you win a fist-fight with a hotel-security guard?
Travelling by horse, train and sleeper-bus from the deserts of Xinjiang, across the mountains of Sichuan to the water-buffalo fields of Hong Kong, Cecilie shows China as the most-happening place on Earth and the most fun.
Why not attend the book-launch party in a typical Hong Kong cha chan teng: the Honolulu Coffee Shop, 33 Stanley Street, Central District, at 7 p.m. on October 6? Meet the author and learn some Cantonese the natural way -- from a Norwegian!
Pete Spurrier
Blacksmith Books, Hong Kong
(October 4, 2011)
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