No Sweat Canto-Love - An Easy Guide to Cross-Cultural Relationships

No Sweat Canto-Love - An Easy Guide to Cross-Cultural Relationships

by Amy Leung

Asia 2000 $98

Cantonese is such a rapidly changing language that even locals are reluctant to talk after a few months overseas - until they've become attuned to the latest lingo. What hope, then, for the foreigner? It's with some trepidation that we pick up this book, and it's reassuring to find Amy Leung has cast the dynamic so accurately. Any foreigner entering into a relationship is going to learn very quickly the Cantonese for Neih ji haih gu jih gei ('You only think of yourself'), how to take instructions such as Louh gu, Deih ha hou wujou a ('Darling, the floor is dirty') and Neih jung yi la ('Up to you'). Three important lessons here: a foreigner will quickly find that a Hong Kong partner is self-centred and will always presume they come first; they grew up with an amah and are incapable of housework; and they eschew any responsibility, so if something goes wrong it's your fault. And I must question some of her useful phrases. When I said a waiter was hou leng, my Chinese friends laughed. Which is, I guess, why they encourage foreigners to learn Cantonese - to give them someone to laugh at.

A chapter for gay Hong Kong next time, please.