Larry Feign (方南理) Interview

"My interest in Cantonese developed as a result of my interest in the gorgeous Hong Kong Chinese woman who later became my wife. Stupid me, I'd been studying Japanese for three years, and then went and married a Chinese!"

"My Cantonese is about a 4 on a scale of 10 (with 10 being fluent). The language defeated me long ago. I honestly believe that Cantonese was designed by a committee who deliberately created a dialect that would be impossible for foreigners to learn."

"My comprehension is around 6, so I can very often listen in on conversations but very frustratingly be unable to respond properly in Cantonese. I understand many TV shows as long as they don't contain a lot of trendy slang, which changes by the hour...which leaves out most Hong Kong TV shows. I don't understand the news."

"I can read about 300 JAPANESE characters, from my Japanese study. Since 90 percent of them are the same as the Chinese words, I can read most shop signs and many ads on buses, but ironically I don't know how to pronounce a lot of them in Cantonese."

"Soon after we moved to Hong Kong, my wife and I were cooking together. She was at the wok, I was preparing food. I asked her in Cantonese if she wanted choi sum. She stared big-eyed at me and after a pause, said "You just told me to get undressed!" In my horrible diction, I had mispronounced the word as "chui saam". It was then that I realized the unending potential for bilingual puns and humour with Cantonese and English. 
So the genesis of the cartoon was to feature the words. The observations about Hong Kong life came later."

"Books and tapes are useless to me. I took classes for 6 months, but found those almost useless. As a matter of fact, EVERYTHING is useless in trying to learn Cantonese, as far as I'm concerned."

"I find the native speakers most difficult. They're so not-used to hearing foreigners, or even other Chinese people, speaking Cantonese, that they pay more attention to ridiculing my accent than to what I might be trying to say."

"It is very easy to forget words that you just learned a few minutes before."

"Of course it's maddening. Even speakers of other Chinese dialects find the vast complexity of Cantonese tones a challenge."

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"My advice is not to be so intimidated by the language, or seduced by the notion that you can get by using only English in Hong Kong, that you don't bother even to try to learn. I know foreigners who've lived in Hong Kong for 30 years and still have no idea how to ask a taxi driver to stop, or even to understand prices when shopping. This is
unforgivable."

Please click the thumbnail to the right to read the cartoon at full size :

"My kids speak hardly a word of Cantonese. Since my wife works all day with English-speaking clients (she's a psychologist) and since English is the dominant language in our home, and since the kids go to international schools, they have had no motivation to learn Cantonese, no matter how many times we have pushed them into it. 
The simple fact of the matter is that, as my wife puts it, after a stressful day at work (and every day is stressful), the last thing she wants to do when coming home is to be a language teacher. So we all speak English. It's easier."

"I believe that Cantonese mothers whisper to their children when they are still babies that they MUST give blank stares to any foreigner who attempts to speak to them, and that if they DO happen to understand a non-native-speaker of Cantonese (including northerners and Taiwanese), it is their duty to laugh at and bitterly ridicule their accent, particularly if  it's in front of an audience or a television camera. Even our Dear Leader Tung Chee-Wah does that."

"There seems to be slightly more acceptance of the idea that some foreigners actually live here long enough that they might possibly want to speak Cantonese. So I find a few more of the exceptions referred to above. 
It's still not like being in Europe or Japan, where people are delighted when you speak their language, don't snicker at your accent, and are delighted to help you to learn."

"Don't get upset. Remember, just like you're trying to practice a foreign language, so are they. The fact that they make an effort to understand you is about the best you can hope for."

"Two-thirds of the readers of English media here are Chinese people. I always considered local educated Chinese to be my audience, not expatriates. And I have received countless letters, mostly from Chinese women, who wanted to express their delight and amazement that an American male cartoonist could create a believable Chinese female character. In fact, many Chinese people told me that my cartoons opened their eyes to the fact that some foreigners might maybe actually understand and sympathize with Chinese people. 

The ONLY negative letter I received in 20 years came from a white British man who accused me of being an anti-British "racist". Ha!"

"Yes and no. That's a long discussion, so I won't get into it."

Please click the thumbnail to the right to read the cartoon at full size :

"Animation mostly. And writing a monthly column about observations of life in Hong Kong."

"I like Lo Fu Ji (The Old Master) comic books. Those are some of the greatest slapstick humour ever drawn. There are some good local political cartoonists, though I'm more enthusiastic about their messages and their gag writing than I am about their drawing styles."