Cantonese

Good riddance to a bittersweet 2011 – here’s to a happy 2012!

January 1, 2012

There is an undeniable sense of guilt-ridden déjà vu as I write these words: “I’m sorry for the absence and the lack of posts of late”. I’m not sure where the cultural custom owes its roots, but for guilty Chinese children confessing their sins, the customary stance is to have your head bowed, pulling on [...]

Read the full post →

Fair Dinkum barbequed prawn dumplings

April 3, 2011

What do we consider Australian? What’s fair dinkum Aussie? For the uninitiated, “fair dinkum” is Australian lingo for “genuine”. It is a term probably lost of the current urban and multicultural generation, but one still stereotypically associated with farmers, the older generation, and folks born and bred in the country – generally those characters we [...]

Read the full post →

Chinese New Year and a recipe for Zhaoqing diced pork and green mango

January 31, 2011

With another Chinese New Year peering around the corner, it seems ripe for reflection again. With the recent publication of Amy Chua’s controversial book: “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” and the arguably even more inflammatory publicity in the Wall Street Journal, Chinese parenting has taken a hard knock in the media in recent times. [...]

Read the full post →

Dim Sum to touch your heart

April 8, 2009

That’s what dim sum means – “to touch your heart”. Dim Sum originated in the Guangdong region of Southern China and were served at tea houses as delicious accompaniments to the tea. Originally tea and not food was the focus of tea houses, as yum cha literally means to drink tea in Cantonese. For that [...]