NYC Mayor Speaks Mandarin!

Mamdani makes a video announcement in Mandarin

A few hours ago, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a video -- in Mandarin -- and makes a damn good effort.

He starts off by introducing himself and says he doesn't know how to speak Mandarin, but he wants to try.

Then Mamdani announces the city is giving away over 2,000 free tickets to high school students on August 17 to watch Broadway shows. 

While some criticise his staccato delivery, fans are thrilled that he even attempted to pronounce the tonal language relatively well for a beginner.

As one person said online: "Is there anything this man can't do?"

We also have to give kudos to his language coaches, as Mandarin pronunciation along with the tones aren't easy.

Maybe there will be a BTS or behind-the-scenes video of how Mamdani had his crash course in Mandarin?

In the meantime, this video throws the gauntlet down for Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim to try to woo the Chinese vote by speaking Cantonese in time for the October 17 municipal election... 

Dynasty Seafood Restaurant Finally Gets its Due

Claypot filled with large oysters and beef tendons

Last week Vancouver Magazine named Dynasty Seafood Restaurant as Restaurant of the Year, and last year was named Best Chinese Restaurant in Canada by the Chinese Restaurant Awards.

In 1992, the Cantonese restaurant originally in the West Broadway location was called East Ocean and then it changed hands in 2009 to become Dynasty Seafood Restaurant. 

Mini minced pork patties with lotus

For Vancouverites who have discerning taste, Dynasty is the one to beat, as each successive chef cooks up creative delicious dishes built from solid culinary foundations. And then there's the presentation: many years ago I remember as decoration a basket was woven out of stalks of green chives. 

Perhaps the only challenge about this restaurant is that it is hard to book a table, or the noise level in the dining room can get to raucous levels. 

We went here a few days after Dynasty was crowned the top restaurant in the city, and surprised to find they didn't have our reservation, but that they happened to have an extra table for us.

For dinner we didn't go too fancy, but some highlights were the claypot filled with gelatinous hot beef tendon paired with large oysters, succulent sauteed diced beef with eggplant, and mini pan-fried minced pork patties with lotus for added texture. 

While these dishes were delicious, they had quite a bit of MSG in them; I was quite thirsty afterwards!

Stir-fried diced beef with eggplant

It was quite the shock to see Dynasty FINALLY get its due from Vancouver Magazine... a long time ago for many years, the publication's perception of good Chinese food was Pink Pearl Chinese Seafood Restaurant, a place that seems frozen in time in the early 1980s and hasn't evolved much since.

We're glad to see Chinese cuisine finally get more praise from mainstream media. But there are many other great restaurants too other than Dynasty. 

Here's to hoping more Chinese places get recognised by the tastemakers who are beginning to learn what good Chinese food is!

Hong Kong Diaspora Get Together

The Mister Softee ice cream truck's jingle drew in customers

Today was the fifth Hong Kong Fair held at The Shipyards in North Vancouver today. It's become an event that brings together the Hong Kong diaspora, from those who immigrated decades ago, to recent arrivals, all with the common love of the city.

I tried to get there right after my Pilates class via bus and then Seabus. Already there were many people lining up for food, which is what I should have done, but I mistakenly walked into the cultural section first; when I tried to leave, a volunteer warned me I would not be able to get back in after I left! They really need to make this clear when walking to the entrance...

Does this describe a Hongkonger in Vancouver?

So I wandered around the stalls, many of them selling Hong Kong-related trinkets, like crochet versions of egg tarts and pineapple buns, milk tea kits, dog treats, postcards or prints of scenes of the city, tote bags with designs of White Rabbit candy or the old school Airplane game, jewellery, and books.

There was one picture book of Hong Kong that really resonated with me and probably many others -- the hand-drawn illustrations captured the flavour of the city. But instead I bought a 1,000-piece puzzle featuring a city scene of Hong Kong.

I finally left the culture area and tried to find the stall selling seafood congee. Holy Duck Chili Oil teamed up with Eat Fish seafood supplier and Masterchef runner-up chef Dez Lo to make two kinds of congee, seafood (featuring wild BC fish and seafood like jumbo prawns) seasoned with halibut stock, and shimeji mushrooms with vegan XO sauce.

Seafood congee was delicious

The queue was much longer than I thought and in the heat! It snaked along further so I must have waited about 45 minutes so I was very hungry by the time I got to the front. Dez was there, running off her feet, but in good spirits.

The seafood congee was ready to eat so I ate it as I waited for the mushroom one. I also chatted with the owners of Holy Duck Chili Oil, who were also selling their sauces as well as T-shirts. 

Both congee were fantastic -- the seafood one choc full of salted chunks of fish, giant prawns, and octopus, while the mushroom one was full of umami and had lots of mushrooms in it to give it a meatier texture. I later heard they were sold out of congee by 2pm! 

After having stood in line for so long I was not motivated to do that again and looked for the shortest queues. Snackshot had a very short line so I had some curry fish balls. There was a modified Mister Softee ice cream truck playing the same recognisable jingle, serving soft serve sundaes. 

Then I wandered into a large covered area where people were playing mahjong at several tables, and I saw my friends at the UBC Cantonese table. One showed me how to type Cantonese using Jyutping, the romanisation system for Cantonese that was developed in 1993.

Tote bags with nostalgic designs

She showed me how to download an app called Type Duck (打得) and the spelling is not what I'm used to, but it immediately shows different characters with similar sounds so it helps you learn more words. I will try to play around with it more.

It was almost 3pm when I decided to go home... and I was exhausted!

When a Malaysian Meddles in Hong Kong Affairs

Kuok became CEO of Shangri-La hotel group last August

The debate of whether Hongkongers should learn more Mandarin than Cantonese has erupted again after the scion of the family that owns a chain of luxury hotels weighed in on the topic at a business summit in the city.

"We should really revamp our public education system. Our next generation has to be much more connected to China in terms of language and culture," said Hui Kuok, chair and group chief executive of the Shangri-La luxury hotel group.

She is the daughter of Robert Kuok, founder of the hotel group and Malaysia's richest man. At one point she was the CEO and managing director of the South China Morning Post newspaper, which was owned by her father until he sold it to Alibaba in 2016.

"One way to do this could be over time to make Putonghua the main medium of instruction in schools," she said, speaking at HSBC's Global Investment Summit in Hong Kong.

"Another way could be for Hong Kong to invite some of the best public schools in China to open campuses here, just like we have done for international schools for decades."

Needless to say there was a lot of outrage over her remarks, in particular that she has a privileged background and attended international schools and has a degree in East Asian Studies at Harvard. She became CEO of Shangri-La Asia Limited last August, and is the wife of Bryan Gaw, an executive director of Kerry Properties, another Kuok company.

Many commenting online say Hongkongers should continue speaking Cantonese, Mandarin and English, and not specifically cater to China. However, for the Shangri-La hotel group, China is its greatest source of revenue, with an equity interest in 50 hotels out of 82 worldwide.

Besides, Mandarin is already taught in Hong Kong schools as a requirement. What more does Kuok want?

It's quite strange for her to speak out on a topic like this when she herself had an international education, having grown up in Hong Kong and then studied in the United States.

Some people online have called to boycott the hotel chain, and if -- a big if -- there are enough of them to make a serious financial dent in the company's bottom line, we may know why...

Cantonese Humour on Show in Chinatown

Sio and Mahbubani answered questions from the audience

Two Cantonese-speaking stand-up comics came to Vancouver and I watched them perform this afternoon at the Chinatown Storytelling Centre and had a good laugh listening to their humour.

Vivek Mahbubani is South Asian and born and raised in Hong Kong. Several years ago he was an anomaly because he speaks fluent Cantonese, and not only that, he won in the Cantonese category for Hong Kong's funniest person in 2007, and then in English the following year.

His jokes are mainly inspired by his experiences and observations as a South Asian living in Hong Kong. He still gets a lot of shocked expressions from locals when he opens his mouth. In his routine he started off by saying he went to eat at a cha chaan teng, and because it was busy, he had to share a table with a young couple.

Watched the Cantonese version of the show

Mahbubani looked at the menu and said, "Waiter can you take my order?" in Cantonese, to which the young woman across from him pointed and exclaimed, "You can speak!"

Her boyfriend tried to shut her up. "If he can speak then he can understand what you're saying!"

Another time he got into the MTR carriage and saw there were three seats in a row that were empty. He sat in the middle one -- and adds no one sat next to him because of racism. Ouch! But probably true.

Then two girls who were friends entered the carriage chatting, and then sat on either side of him and continued talking to each other as if he wasn't there. 

Then one said, "Hey this guy has a beard and hasn't shaved."

It's then that Mahbubani says this is when he waits to find the right moment to reveal that he understands what they're saying.

So he waited and then pulled out his phone and said, "Wei?"

And then added, "Yes I'm going to buy a shaver today."

He also gives the usual Hong Kong observations of how everyone stands on the right of the escalator so that those who are in a hurry can walk up the on the left. But there's always someone who insists on standing on the left, holding up the person behind (usually him). Time is money, right?

The other comedian is Joanna Sio, who grew up in Hong Kong too, went to UBC and is married to a Czech husband with two kids.

Both comedians are from Hong Kong

She started off by saying the couple decided early on not to learn their spouse's native language because you never know if you're going to divorce soon. But since they moved to the Czech Republic a few years ago she has learned for a year or so.

But most of her routine was about her growing up in a 400 sq ft flat with eight people in the family. Sio talked about how her father had a terrible temper and would take it out on... a watermelon.

"He knew kungfu -- from watching TV -- and would use his hand like a knife to chop the watermelon in half. We would watch and not say a word," she recalled.

Then one time he was really angry and took out a watermelon and Sio said they watched as his hand went down on the watermelon, but it didn't chop in half like usual. His hand was sore and retreated into his bedroom for hours.

"I was the only person who knew why he couldn't chop the watermelon in half. That's because I had put it in the freezer earlier."

She also talked about how they bought live chicken at the market, but didn't kill it right away. They waited a day or two to see if it was healthy. It was her grandmother who did the dirty deed. She would cradle the chicken in her left arm tightly and then cover its eyes before she used the cleaver to chop its neck and let the blood drain so that they could use it later for other dishes.

After several years, her grandmother was too old to kill chickens, so the task fell to Sio's mother -- who had never done it before. So she grabbed the chicken in her left arm, held it tight and covered its eyes. But she couldn't bring herself to kill it. "She said, "Kids we're not eating chicken tonight."

But because she was holding the chicken so tightly, it had died.

Many people in the audience were second generation Chinese-Canadian and told the comedians they could understand most of what they said, which was heartening for them to hear. One asked how Mahbubani got into comedy and he said it was because of the show Seinfeld.

He said the show opens with Jerry Seinfeld on a stage telling jokes and Mahbubani wondered what that was and how he could do that. He got into it in 2007, but had to do a lot of odd jobs to keep his dream alive. Now he can pick and choose which gigs he'd like to do.

Someone asked about the differences between comedy in English and Chinese. Mahbubani says in Chinese because of the fear of losing face, he never singles out people in the audience. Instead he talks about "we" or "I" when telling stories.

Sio says if people don't get her jokes she takes it personally and will rewrite them to try to improve. She admitted that she has a fear of speaking in front of an audience which is why she went into improv and then stand-up to build confidence. When her routine goes well it makes her very happy and gives her more confidence to speak in front of people! 

Review: All Our Ordinary Stories

Wong examines her relationships with her parents

Many second-generation Chinese-Canadians or Americans feel a cultural and generational gap between themselves and their parents. Some children are the family translator for documents to doctor appointments, have difficulty communicating because they don't have a strong grasp of their parents' native tongue or culture.

These observations are captured in Teresa Wong's All Our Ordinary Stories, where she attempts to be closer to her parents by trying to understand their hardships and values. However she feels hampered by her elementary Cantonese skills, only knowing words for physical objects and not feelings or thoughts.

The graphic novel is relatable

The graphic novel opens with Wong coming to terms with her mother's stroke, and her father expecting his daughter to take on the caregiver role. Despite Wong's simplistic drawings, they clearly convey emotions and the reader immediately becomes vested in the story she is telling.

Wong delves into her childhood, having to translate everything for her parents, whose education level was stunted by the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, some of the most fraught passages in the book.

As youths, her parents separately swam from China to Hong Kong, a perilous journey attempted by an estimated tens of thousands of people, but only a fraction made it alive. 

When Wong asks her mother to tell her more about her escape, her mother tells her it was "ordinary", that everyone she knew swam too.

It is this pragmatic attitude of wanting to move on with their lives that is a cultural and age gap that Wong encounters with her parents, or is it not wanting to be re-traumatised? Wong can't tell which it is.

She finally gets some insight into her parents' previous lives when visiting China with them, watching how they interact with relatives and friends, though she still feels held back by her inability to fully comprehend their conversations.

Her stories resonate with immigrants

Not only did her parents make the leap of faith to come to Canada, it turns out her great grandfather did as well back in 1912, who went back to China three times, making the long journey by boat to get married and have children. Not only did he have to work hard to pay off the C$500 headtax, but also was separated from his family for decades because of the 1923 Exclusion Act.

In All Our Ordinary Stories, the reader can see how much thought Wong has put into crafting her graphic novel, in how she tells it through the drawings and words. And in some ways her stories are relatable to many immigrant families, with the parents -- and in the case of Wong's great grandfather -- trying to carve out a better life for themselves and their progeny.

While Wong may not be able to get the full story of her parents' lives and get to know them the way she hoped she would, this book is proof that she has tried very hard to appreciate what they have done.

All Our Ordinary Stories may seem like a graphic novel about identifying as Chinese, it is a Canadian story about taking the risk of establishing roots in a new country.

HK Immigrants Gather at HK Fair

A semi-outdoor area featured numerous stalls to buy items

Today was the fourth annual Vancouver Hong Kong Fair and I finally checked it out for the first time. Just like last year, the fair was held at The Shipyards in North Vancouver and I'm glad I went. It's the closest thing for like-minded Hongkongers to meet up, share and enjoy their culture.

I was on a tight schedule with a concert to attend in the early afternoon, so I took the bus downtown just before 9.30am and caught the seabus at Waterfront station to get there at 10.30am before it opened half an hour later. There was already a small line for ticket holders that already formed though the signage wasn't very clear.

Back copies of Apple Daily were for sale

The fair opened a few minutes after 11am and they scanned my QR code and gave me a bright pink bracelet before I could wander around the outdoor fair in a covered area. It's a good space, and I was glad I went early because I can see how it can get crowded very quickly.

There were all kinds of stalls selling handmade beauty products, cookies like salted egg yolk shortbread, treats for dogs shaped like egg tarts (my cousin's dog wolfed them down later), Chinese books, jewellery, Lion Rock T-shirts and tote bags, Hong Kong-themed coasters, key chains and artwork.

One stall was run by activists who are raising money to help people back in Hong Kong. There was a stack of Apple Daily newspapers, and included the copy of the last publication of the paper for C$50. Manning the booth was former Hong Kong radio host "Giggs" Edmund Wan Yiu-sing, who was jailed for 32 months for sedition and money laundering who are raising money to help people back in Hong Kong. 

Curry fish balls with peanut sauce

Another section was food one could buy and eat there, like curry fish balls, various sweet drinks with sago in them; I tried one with durian, coconut milk and sago. Hong Kong milk tea was also available as well as mango mochi.

Recently re-elected NDP MP Jenny Kwan was at the opening ceremony and gave a bilingual speech explaining that she was originally from Hong Kong and grateful to be in Canada. She promised she would help ensure the Canadian government would approve all Hong Kong immigrants' applications for permanent residency. She got a big round of applause.

In an indoor space was the cultural section, where UBC Cantonese had a booth, an area showing the black and white photographs of legendary photographer Chan Kiu, who passed away in Vancouver last year at the age of 96. There were pictures of Vietnamese refugee children eating from basins, the funeral of Bruce Lee, and Queen Elizabeth II's first visit to Hong Kong.

There were also mahjong tables for people to play the game, or learn how to make paper lanterns. An interactive exhibit featured various places in Hong Kong with photographs matched with scents from those areas.

MP Jenny Kwan spoke in Cantonese

I also got to meet up with some people I had met before and catch up with them, and get to know what others are doing in Metro Vancouver, from holding Cantonese summer camps to drawing workshops.

After about an hour and a half, I made it back to the seabus with two minutes to spare. As I was leaving there were more people lined up to go in, and even more spilling out of the seabus. Now I know why people make an effort to go because settling in Vancouver isn't easy; at this event they feel strength in numbers, and feel understood and appreciated.

Tokyo: Looking at the Japanese Capital from Up High

Looking up at Tokyo Tower at night

A good way to have a grasp of a city you're visiting is to see it from up high, and Tokyo, a metropolis built vertically, has not one, but two towers from which you can perch from and look down. 

When I went to Tokyo for the first time in the mid-1980s on a school trip, going to Tokyo Tower was a big deal. I still remember the guide book I bought and some souvenirs like key chains. 

Fantastic night scenes of the city

Shaped like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but 9 metres taller, Tokyo Tower was built in 1958 and stands 332.9 metres and has an observation deck at 150 metres, and a higher one at 250 metres. We went after dinner and were surprised to find there was no line up. We just bought tickets and went up the elevator to see Tokyo at night. 

Admittedly it was difficult to make out everything in the dark, but it was enjoyable with less visitors. As it is sakura season, the observation deck area was decorated with a fake sakura tree and pink petals decorating some of the windows (making it harder to take pictures). Nevertheless it was a clear night and so our night pictures were pretty good.

A day later we had afternoon tickets for Tokyo Skytree, which is also a broadcast and observation tower, the tallest in Japan at 634 metres. And because it opened in 2012, visitors are more interested in coming here than Tokyo Tower.

Women in kimonos at Sensoji Temple

We first went to Sensoji Temple and it was packed with people, as it was a Sunday and beautiful weather, and most importantly sakura or cherry blossoms had bloomed. Many young women were dressed in kimono, but we could only tell where they were from when they opened their mouths -- some spoke Cantonese, others Mandarin. Then there were a few non-Asians who managed to squeeze into the kimonos, and one guy went barefoot, perhaps because there were no socks in his size...

They rented these outfits in order to have their pictures taken by professional photographers. 

Looking across the river we could see Tokyo Skytree in the distance and began walking towards it. Along the river are restaurants and cafes, while others sat on the grass or ground and had hamani, or picnics to appreciate the cherry blossoms.

We walked around 20 minutes and arrived at the base of Tokyo Skytree, which includes a shopping complex with various brands, and yes McDonald's, and other cafes.

Walking towards Tokyo Skytree

Luckily we decided to line up "early" for the 4pm slot because others had already begun standing in line. We soon realised that it zig-zagged around and it was quite the ordeal waiting for one of three or four high-speed elevators to get up to the observation deck. 

Finally after 4pm we finally made it to the front and allotted to an elevator where we had to wait for it to go up and then come down before opening its doors to collect us. We got the combo tickets where we could visit both observation decks at 350 metres and 450 metres. 

I could see how tiring it was for the staff to corral people all day, repeat the same spiel about Tokyo Skytree every 10 minutes or so and to bow as the elevator doors closed, then repeat. Again and again.

There was a tour group from India and they were able to bypass lines to get their own elevator spot; the Tokyo Skytree staff were used to this and gave them priority, making the rest of us wait another several minutes.

But once we were up on the 350-metre high deck, it was quite the sight. Seeing Tokyo by day it made me realise how many rivers there are snaking through the city, and as a result there are numerous bridges. 

The observation tower at 450 metres high

We could barely see what we going on down below, just tons of buildings like Lego bricks poking up from the ground and standing straight, while the curves of the river forced the structures to conform to the shape. The city stretched out as far as the eye could see, with a population of over 14 million. 

There were some glass skywalks inside, where there was nothing holding you up except the thick glass. Some found it scary, others exhilarating. 

One young woman was dressed up in a cosplay outfit so that she could take pictures at Skytree; many were willing to pay for the privilege.

We walked up an incline to get to the next elevator at 450 metres, but here it was even higher and everything looked even smaller down below. There were also more supports on the windows, which didn't give clear views for photographs.

Many rivers snake through the city

Getting back down was also an ordeal, again waiting in line for the next elevator, though once we were in (at the 350 metre level), we were warned we couldn't go back up again, and that was that. Lots of souvenir shops below, though none of them sold any printed guidebooks. 

Finally getting out of Skytree we were relieved to get away from the mass crowd of visitors. It must be so tiring for the staff dealing with so many people everyday.

Hong Kong's Challenging Times

Hong Kong is facing challenging times these days

Last year when I visited Hong Kong, it was eerily quiet as a lot of people had left the city for Easter break. 

This time around it looked busier, but looking at the shopping malls it is sad to see how empty they are, as the shops are empty. Not a single customer inside. The shop staff are looking at their phones or looking very bored. This is the state of retail these days.

Times Square mall was quiet just after 6pm

Case in point: this afternoon I wandered around Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui, steps away from the Star Ferry. It used to be the place mainlanders shopped in, with queues in front of Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Dior. While there were people wandering around window shopping, hardly anyone was buying anything, even mainland visitors.

No locals are buying because they are worried about their financial situation. A few days ago a friend told me that his manager and mid-level managers were let go -- immediately. His immediately boss had no idea she would be sacked and after seeing the human resources manager, went to her desk to pack up her stuff and left.

Another who had an inkling of what was going to happen, said farewell to colleagues, took their purse with them and they didn't see them again. People at work purposely keep only a few items in the office just in case they will be axed.

Meanwhile those left behind must pick up the pieces and take on even more work, for the same amount of pay, or a pay cut even, as times are tough. 

Sunset light reflects on ICC building

The media industry is rapidly unravelling thanks to artificial intelligence. The Hong Kong Standard sacked all of their sub editors, people who check stories for grammar and make sure it is factually correct. They have all been replaced by AI. Currently AI can rewrite stories, but not necessarily with the information intact and must be looked over to ensure the facts are still there...

Editors are even using AI to rewrite stories for them -- the job they are supposed to be doing! Do they want to be out of a job themselves? It's so bizarre and crazy that this is happening so fast. My friends joked they will have to turn to basket weaving to sustain themselves financially.

Meanwhile millennials are challenging to work with, unable to follow instructions or have the passion to work hard. Two friends told me they are literally babysitting the staff they work with, following up to make sure they finish their assignments, and they do so at odd hours -- like 3am or 5pm, or don't consider how their work will be perceived outside of the company. But they can't be fired otherwise my friends will have to do even more work.

It feels like schools are downsizing by the month, as teachers continue to quit and leave, and about the same proportion of students; this has resulted in lowering qualifications for teachers, in particular NET or native English teachers, while the same goes for the police, who have pretty much done away with stringent physical tests.

How can Hong Kong survive like this? It's hard to be optimistic for the city when you see the difficulties and no light at the end of the tunnel. 

But when looked at another way, a friend who moved with her two daughters from Beijing to Hong Kong a year ago, they love being here, despite the challenges of having to learn Cantonese and English. They enjoy eating different kinds of cuisines, like the fact there are hardly any queues for rides at Hong Kong Disneyland, and they are exposed to different kinds of opinions.

Nevertheless does the government have ideas on how to navigate the city through these challenging times? It's time to think outside the box to stimulate the economy and bring back visitors who splurge, not ones who follow advice on Xiaohongshu to spend the least amount of money...

 

Wok Hei at a Hong Kong Dai Pai Dong

Two chefs cooking with wok hei at dai pai dong Oi Man Sang

In Chinese cooking, particularly Cantonese, people talk about how good a dish is by the "wok hei", literally "the breath of the wok".

It involves intense heat or fire, that heats up the wok so much that ingredients are cooked and caramelised in less than a minute, resulting in a slight char or hint of smokiness that adds another layer to the flavour of the dish.

Baked casserole, stir fried beef ribs, razor clams

Most Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong have wok stations to create wok hei, but may not be able to get that intense heat that can be found in dai pai dongs, or open-air food stall. One of them is Oi Man Sang in the Sham Shui Po area, more specifically around Prince Edward district.

Dai pai dong literally means "big license stall", and they began proliferating after World War II. But decades later in a bid to clean up the streets for hygienic reasons, the government restricted the number of dai pai dongs, relocating many of them in government-run cooked food markets. 

The numbers of dai pai dongs dwindled further when the authorities only allowed owners to pass on the license to family members. 

Which brings us to Oi Man Sang, which has been around since 1956, making it one of the oldest in Hong Kong. 

Typhoon shelter crab with garlic and spices

Typically there is a massive line of people waiting for tables -- no reservations are taken -- and diners are literally eating on the sidewalk while the mobile kitchen is on the street, with two big gas burners fuelled by kerosene. As chef Lucas Sin likes to say, they use jet fuel to cook.

This was my first time to Oi Man Sang and was excited to try the food that I had read and heard so much about. We got a table set up on the sidewalk, metres away from the open-air kitchen and watched two chefs deftly manipulate the woks as they were heated up by the roaring fire underneath.

Another good thing about eating here is that there is no corkage, so we brought a bottle of sake to try with the food. 

The first dish to arrive at the table was baked fish intestines with liver in egg casserole, and here it was topped with thin slices of you tiao or savoury Chinese doughnut for a contrasting texture. This was done well, fluffy from the eggs combined with the offal.

Stir-fried cabbage with minced pork and shrimp

Next was stir-fried small razor clams, which you don't see often. The narrow strips of sweet clam meat were about two to three inches long, cooked with a tiny bit of spice, and roughly chopped onion and peppers.

We also ordered stir-fried beef ribs, very tender and attached to the bone, together with onion and peppers again, and typhoon shelter crab, which is cooked with a lot of minced garlic and spices. The meat itself was sweet, though quite messy to eat.

A favourite was stir-fried cabbage with minced pork and dried shrimps in a clay pot. The cabbage soaked up the salty flavours, and in the sizzling pot stayed warm for quite a while. 

Stir-fried prawns is considered a popular dish, though again a bit messy to eat, though the prawns were very large, meaty and sweet.

While most of these dishes demonstrated wok hei, perhaps the only dish that was disappointing with the yeung chow fried rice; the individual rice while plump, were not cooked well enough in the wok to have the wok hei flavour.

Large meaty prawns served at Oi Man Sang

Nevertheless, we were quite satisfied with our dinner. I ventured over to the kitchen to take a look and indeed the two chefs there cooked dishes in seconds thanks to the intense fire on the stove. 

At one point there was a lot of banging -- the fire was so hot that it had warped the wok and the chef had to hammer it back into shape!

The evening we went there weren't many people waiting in line, which some attribute to not many tourists coming. We hope Oi Man Sang and other dai pai dongs continue their tradition for years to come, though who in the next generation is willing to work with such heat day in, day out?

Oi Man Sang

Shop B-C, G/F, 1 Shek Kip Mei Street, Sham Shui Po

+852 2393 9315

Anthony Wong Yiu-ming in Vancouver

Wong performed last night in Vancouver

Last night I attended my first Cantopop concert! In all my years living in Hong Kong I never went to one because I wasn't familiar with the music, no one asked me to go, and it felt inaccessible.

But a friend asked me to go see Anthony Wong Yiu-ming in Vancouver and I shelled out for a pretty good seat, only metres away from the stage at The Centre downtown. I'm surprised that since 2013 the building, which used to be owned by four brothers from Hong Kong is now owned by Westside Church! Nevertheless it's a great venue, clean and comfortable seats. Several Hong Kong bands and artists have used this place, partly because the staff are not in a union.

He was last in Vancouver five years ago

I was expecting a band with dancers, but it was very scaled down, Wong with two musicians who mostly played synthetizers, and one periodically played guitar, the other played the accordion for one song. 

Wong's fans were excited to see him -- one near the front even had a bright sign lit up with LED white lights that said "明哥" or "Ming Gor", a term of endearment. Many wore either his current concert tour T-shirt, or previous ones.

I don't know the songs that he sang, but later in the show he sang Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now. Wong explained that when he goes to a different place he likes to sing a song from there. As French is also spoken in Canada, he sang a song by Edith Piaf.

He explained he admired Jean Cocteau, a Renaissance man in his day, who was a poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director and visual artist. He was good friends with Piaf. She died October 10, 1963, and Cocteau died the day after.

Wong noted that Anita Mui Yim-fong was born October 10, 1963...

Early on in the show fans rushed to the stage to give him flowers. My friend had heard earlier that Wong had asked his fans not to give him flowers but money instead. Possibly a joke? But Wong was grateful to receive the flowers and read out a few of the cards, though these fans had written very long letters to him and he couldn't read them all.

He sang a mix of new and old songs

On stage, Wong drank a lot of liquids, as he coughed a bit. But after he seemed to end the show, and the audience clamoured for him to come back. He finally appeared and seemed to have his second wind and sang songs that Joseph Koo Kar-fai had written, again explaining it was because the legendary composer had lived in Vancouver (until he died last January). Wong seemed to be excited and told the audience he was singing yet another song that he didn't perform in Toronto, which got his fans all cheering.

The show started at around 8.20pm and didn't end until 11pm!

This evening, he came to the Asian Centre at the University of British Columbia to talk about his work in Cantonese. Again the room was filled with fans, almost all from Hong Kong, with a few from China.

Someone asked him if he would stay much longer in Hong Kong given the situation, and his brushes with the law. Wong admitted that he had thought about leaving, but he said his loved ones are in Hong Kong which is why he will stay. He added that he feels like he doesn't belong anywhere in particular and that's fine with him.

Another asked about his songwriting process and this was where Wong praised his collaborators, the two musicians who were on stage with him, along with a few others. He said it was a collaboration, where he might have some ideas and they try to realise it for him, and it's a back-and-forth collaboration; Wong insisted he could not do it by himself as he does not know how to read music, let along write it, but he has ideas, and these musicians have the technical ability to help him.

Fans asked Wong questions at UBC

One woman asked about his influences and how he curated them. He said there were too many to say what they were, but explained that when he was a child, he helped his father with his work and for that he got some pocket money. Wong would spend it watching movies in a theatre that changed films every two days so he watched a lot of them. He also listened to a lot of music too and from there he said he has been exposed to a lot of different things.

A fan asked about why Cantopop is not as globally popular as K-pop and he said it's because the Cantopop songs are very Hong Kong, it's about the place, the people, the circumstances... with K-pop it has a melody that is accessible and the lyrics are generic, that everyone can relate to.

Wong was gracious with his time and answered each question with lengthy replies; other celebrities might just answer with a word or a quick sentence or two. His fans hope he will come back again soon -- his last concert in Vancouver was five years ago!

Review: Lanxuan Restaurant

The shrimp toast is impressive at the new Lanxuan Restaurant

When Chinese people get together, they invariably talk about which restaurants are good these days. This one's not as good now, we went there recently, or we heard the chef has left this other place, and so on. You have to keep track of when you heard the news as things may have changed since then.

The latest is that Chef's Choice, a restaurant on Broadway and Ash used to be pretty good, but the chef left. Where did he go? South to Richmond to a recently opened restaurant with a Mandarin name.

Bizarre beach scene lights up the restaurant

Called Lanxuan Restaurant, it replaces Marina One Richmond Seafood Restaurant next to Tom Lee Music on No. 3 Road and Capstan. Before that it used to be a Knight and Day.

The head dim sum chef who used to be at Chef's Choice is Wei Lai, who has over 30 years' experience in the kitchen, and in May won gold in the team and individual categories of the ninth World Championship of Chinese Cuisine.

Lanxuan's interior is very mainland Chinese in style, with a massive digital screen at the back of the restaurant showing a beach resort scene, with palm trees, blue skies, sandy beach and low couches that look inviting...

This "picture" is so incongruous with the rest of the restaurant which serves a combination of Cantonese and northern Chinese dishes... in a way a strange combination as well.

On the dim sum menu, diners can also order boiled water fish or 水煮鱼... most of the staff speak Cantonese, but some customers are mainlanders. 

Pan-fried vermicelli with beef was a highlight

Nevertheless, overall the dim sum was pretty good, made fresh and interesting fillings. We also ordered rice roll filled with beef paste and had chilli sauce drizzled on top which was different, and shrimp toast was actually pretty good. Shrimp mousse was placed on top of a slice of white bread, deep fried and covered in sesame seeds. There's a decent ratio of shrimp mousse to toast, and hardly oily too which is impressive.

We also had some steamed cake which looked dense, but was actually fluffy and not too sweet. 

We may have found our new dim sum spot, but that digital beach scene has got to go... 

Lanxuan Restaurant

3631 No. 3 Road #170

Richmond, BC

604 285 8989

Refreshing Cantonese Pop-Up

Baby tomatoes with whipped fermented tofu sauce 

Last night I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw an interesting pop-up at Michelin-starred Burdock & Co, a restaurant in Vancouver that focuses on mostly local produce, but this time the sous-chef Katy Cheung was taking over the place with a Cantonese/Hong Kong pop-up titled "See Ha Lah" or "Just Try It".

It was only for one day only -- today! My foodie friend and I had made plans to visit another Hong Kong-style restaurant, but she decided we would check out Burdock & Co first.

Cold tofu with lam choi and century egg

She managed to message Cheung and we got one of the last tables for the first seating at 5.30pm; they were only taking walk-ins. So we ate in the "patio", which is actually just outside the restaurant sectioned off with wooden planters so it felt like eating in a mini garden.

To get as many customers through the door, diners were encouraged to go to the bar to order food and pay for it, so the average eating time was about an hour.

We tried four of the six dishes, not including a bowl of rice. 

The two starters were peeled baby tomatoes seasoned with whipped fu yu or fermented tofu (C$18), though it didn't have that pungent smell -- it was very toned down and the tomatoes had a thin slice of sour turnip and finely diced garlic crunch.

Steamed sablefish Cantonese style

This dish was a favourite among many of the customers as it was different and refreshing, perfect summer fare. Another way to cool down was to have the cold tofu (C$15), a typical home-style dish with silky tofu topped with lam choi or preserved mustard greens and black olives, along with diced pei dan or century egg. A bit of sesame oil was drizzled on top and it would have benefited with a more generous drizzle on the tofu.

For mains we tried the steamed fish (C$42), two tail cuts of sablefish that were perfectly steamed and garnished with scallions, seafood soy and hot oil. You can't overcook sablefish and it's not as expensive as black cod but has a similar texture. 

We saw other tables try the pork chop (C$40) that was a meaty portion for two.

Mochi balls covered in Horlicks diplomat sauce

Finally for dessert a bit of fun and nostalgia in a bowl. Cantonese-style mochi balls, generously covered in a diplomat sauce or custard made with Horlicks and crunchy bits, along with desiccated coconut and sesame seeds sprinkled on top. 

Cheung came by our table and gave us a quick summary of her career. She was born in Vancouver but grew up in Hong Kong, came back here for schooling and then went back for work, where she started at Blue Butcher, a steak place on Hollywood Road. I remember learning about aging meat and they did this in a small room lined with Himalayan rock salt bricks.

She wanted to work with like-minded people who are passionate about making good food and found her way to Burdock & Co where she works with chef Andrea Carlson. Having worked here for about five years Cheung is given a lot of opportunities to create new dishes, and my favourite dish was the mushroom congee that was full of umami flavour, rustic, delicious comfort food.

The talented chef Katy Cheung

For her, this pop-up is food that she makes at home, simple, but here is presented at a high level. We appreciated her passion for Cantonese food and wanting to share it with others.

Hope she has another pop-up again and try her food again!

Hong Kong's Sexist Attitudes Persist

Lee and his wife Janet attracted to the colour red

Women are on the Hong Kong government's mind these days.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu equated trying to seal some deals to attract mega events to the city was akin to chasing women.

In an interview with Sing Tao newspaper, Lee admitted there was stiff competition in trying to lure overseas performers to Hong Kong.

Last week Lo compared women's fertility to soil

"It's like how I used to chase girls. For the good ones, of course everybody will chase them, [we] must work hard and fight," he said in Cantonese.

Then Lee added he would not disclose their strategy of attracting big events to Hong Kong.

In the case of Lee's personal life, he was 22 years old when he chased his then girlfriend Janet Lam Lai-sin who became his wife at the age of 16 in 1980...

Then last week Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau compared female fertility to soil, in that they should not delay having children and that freezing their eggs now would not necessarily help them conceive either.

"It's not just a problem with the eggs, it is also a problem with the soil. Even if you have frozen your eggs, when you have reached 40, the chance that the egg could become a healthy baby will drop substantially," he said in Cantonese.

"Freezing the eggs could not revert the physiological limit on women's reproductive age," he added.

Lam said not all women can give birth early

Lo was immediately criticised by lawmaker Nixie Lam, who opted for assisted reproduction and gave birth to her first child last year, said his remarks were a "heavy blow" to all women in the city.

"The way the minister spoke just now, is it that I couldn't give birth because my soil was bad?" she asked. 

"I believe the minister's remarks would deal a heavy blow even to women without childbirth issues. You are telling them... they cannot get pregnant because the soil in their bodies is bad, and they should give birth naturally whilst they are still young," Lam continued.

"How can you give birth when you are 18 and still studying?" Lam said. "Not everyone is like the minister yourself, who met your match in your 20s, got your degree, got married and had a kid, all in a row."

How much more sexist can this administration get? Perhaps that's why they aren't attracting any big acts either? It is 2024, not 1980...

Stumping Jeopardy! in Cantonese

A Cantonese question made it on Jeopardy!

A local instructor in Cantonese at the University of British Columbia is grinning from ear to ear tonight after seeing a question he helped develop be read on tonight's segment of Jeopardy!

For $1,000 the question was: "As the word for this number sounds like it means "certainly death", Cantonese speakers have a collective case of tetrakaidekaphobia."

The first contestant said, "What is 13?"

Nope, but that is the meaning of tetrakaidekaphobia...

The next one said, "What is 4?"

Also incorrect, but on the right track.

The final contestant said, "What is 52?"

No...

"What is 14"....

The backstory is that two years ago a writer from the game show had the question and reached out to the university department to confirm the accuracy of it. The instructor revised it and now it's a question that will be remembered for stumping all the contestants!