https://www.scmp.com/rss/328654/feed Foong Woei Wan is a production editor at the Post. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Foong Woei Wan Foong Woei Wan My friend is a millionaire by way of owning a home in Hong Kong, the world’s least affordable housing market, but you wouldn’t guess from how personally she takes it when the winds of fortune aren’t blowing her way at the mahjong table. “What now? What on earth do you want from me? This is crazy,” she growls while wrestling 13 tiles into some kind of order, burrowing through her hair for an answer, agonising over which tile is the least risky to discard. Somehow it often falls to me, the poor... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3325833/art-winning-and-beyond-mahjong-table?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3325833/art-winning-and-beyond-mahjong-table?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Sep 2025 01:30:09 +0000 The other day, I listened in as my mother checked that my youngest nephew, the baby of the family, was on the right track of learning the finer points of Chinese-style communication. “Do you know Grandma dotes on you?” she asked in Mandarin, and he quickly answered yes. How could he not? She’s the one whose daily joy is cooking dinner for him, who worries about his mosquito bites and who would gladly walk to the ends of the neighbourhood to stock up on his beloved broccoli in the pre-festive... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3298248/why-dont-we-say-i-love-you-chinese-let-me-count-reasons?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3298248/why-dont-we-say-i-love-you-chinese-let-me-count-reasons?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Feb 2025 01:30:08 +0000 In the streets of a subtropical city like Hong Kong, the start of sweater weather is not announced by flashes of red foliage, but by the smoky scent of chestnuts being raked in roadside woks by hawkers. Around the corner from where I live, sweaty weather ends officially, if not actually, when the public outdoor pool closes for the year and a laminated orange sign reappears outside a long-running restaurant, saying perhaps five of the most heartening words in Chinese: “Lamb brisket hotpot on... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3295896/what-hong-kong-has-taught-me-about-fate-luck-and-feng-shui?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3295896/what-hong-kong-has-taught-me-about-fate-luck-and-feng-shui?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Jan 2025 01:30:09 +0000 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/3286797/hong-kong-funeral-drama-strikes-box-office-gold?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/3286797/hong-kong-funeral-drama-strikes-box-office-gold?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000 My preteen nephew’s fingers are racing ahead of his linguistic engine as he valiantly tries to give me a step-by-step Rubik’s Cube tutorial in Mandarin, but after the third or fourth ranhou (“and then”), his voice trails off. His little brother can’t bear listening any more and blurts out, “Why can’t you tell her in English?” He can’t, he gently explains as I bite back laughter, because the aunt “doesn’t really understand English”. That would be poor old me, the self-appointed guardian of... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3281354/us-vs-chinese-soft-power-guess-how-children-are-voting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3281354/us-vs-chinese-soft-power-guess-how-children-are-voting?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Oct 2024 01:30:08 +0000 I still remember what I was wearing that day in the 1990s, when I flounced up the escalator leading to a high-end mall in Hong Kong, a young woman excited to be shopping alone during a family trip to the Chinese-speaking world’s capital of cool then. Looking back, I wonder if the black floral dress I was wearing would have seemed more frumpy than timelessly romantic to a fashion-conscious Hongkonger. Was my insufficiently brushed hair to blame? Perhaps my excitement somehow looked like the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3272873/what-i-know-chinese-looking-person-travelling-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3272873/what-i-know-chinese-looking-person-travelling-world?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Aug 2024 01:30:11 +0000 https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3206103/michelle-yeoh-having-moment?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3206103/michelle-yeoh-having-moment?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Jan 2023 09:11:53 +0000 A violent storm blows through Hong Kong with an unprecedented intensity, leaving a trail of broken glass, blocked roads and traffic disruptions, and the government comes under fire for failing to manage the situation. That would be Super Typhoon Mangkhut, which hit the city on September 16 last year – a Pig day with an unusually forceful element of water, according to the Chinese almanac. But it could as easily be the protest actions that have engulfed Hong Kong this year, which happens to be a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3024004/year-being-water-chinese-astrological-reading-hong-kong-challenging?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3024004/year-being-water-chinese-astrological-reading-hong-kong-challenging?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Aug 2019 02:30:09 +0000