The Richness of Hong Kong, and Cantonese

In today’s New York Times is a great travel piece about hiking in Hong Kong’s, not something that first comes to mind we someone thinks of Hong Kong, in Green Trails Along a Chinese Frontier, which also introduces Danish Michael Hansen and his website Hansens Hikes for many beautiful images as well a info on the hiking excursions he runs.

Wired Magazine (Issue 14.04 | April 2006) has a article on “The Mandarin Offensive” (Inside Beijing’s global campaign to make Chinese the number one language in the world) (Not online yet now online), and the LA times has a story Cantonese Is Losing Its Voice from January 3rd, about the underside of the story.

Both the New York and LA Times story hint at the expressive richness of expression of Cantonese. For more look over BWG’s Hong Kong Terms

Ai yah , such a dilemma! Improve my (poor, below 3 year old level) Cantonese – the better to catch dinner table gossip; Mandarin – the better take the orders of (and Kowtow to) our new overlords; our the improve my skills at the latest object oriented Meta programming language; the better to stay gainfully employed (and stay the “Golden Chicken”)?