Canto 101: Ocean skin

In my ongoing quest to become more Chinese, I'm picking up my Canto-learning again, one step at a time. That means listening to more Cantopop on KKBOX (reading lyrics really helps) and taking note of any interesting phrases I come across.

One of them is 海皮 -- "hoi pei", which means sea shore. I first heard it when taxi drivers would ask me if I wanted to go home via the highway or the "hoi pei", and it's never not sounded funny to me.

In my head, I just can't help visualizing it as literally the "ocean skin" since "海" means ocean and "皮" means skin. Am I crazy?? To be fair, "ocean skin" is a super accurate description of the sea shore as the "skin" can be anything from sandy and bumpy to smooth and layered.

To use this word, simply tell your taxi driver, "NO highway, YES hoi-pei!" Other suggestions welcome!

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What to say to HK celebrities

For some reason, seeing Hong Kong celebs always kicks my heart rate up a notch, especially the ones that I grew up watching in movies or TVB back in Canada.

Since moving to HK, I've personally met (read: turned into a goofy fangirl in front of) Adam Cheng, Donnie Yen, Moses Chan and Simon Yam, just to name a few, and while most of these sightings were through work, I've also been running into quite a few celebs on my own too.

Like, I've had breakfast with TV show host Egg, seen Cantopop singer Lui Fong buy Taiwanese fried chicken before dashing back into his car, watched one of the Grasshoppers drive by on Queen's Road Central, bumped into Bernice Liu at a concert and walked past the one-and-only Chow Yun Fat (disguised as a homeless man) in Central. What can I say, Hong Kong is small.

But, my most recent sighting was completely unexpected when I ran into Mr. Good Hair himself, Ekin 'Noodle' Cheng at a random high-end lifestyle store, where it was just him and his wife in the store with us. 

EKIN!!

At first, I tried to play it cool by pretending I didn't notice nor know him, but as the minutes passed and all these Ekin-scenes started to flash through my mind, I couldn't help but succumb to my fangirl-dom and ask for a picture (correction: I was so nervous that CC had to ask for me!).

How awkward ... as I stood in between him and his wife for a photo. Those seconds felt like minutes as we stood side-by-side, careful not to make any physical contact. 

To make matters worse, I actually turned to Ekin and blurted out, "You look like my dad!" To which he replied, "Really?" (NO... not really.. I have no idea why I said that...Sorry Ekin!!)

Ahhh, so embarrassing. But hopefully, others have said worse things. Right?? RIGHT?? OK, maybe not. But anyhoo... This incident got me thinking about what I should do the next time I run into a celeb, like... maybe say hi first, make some small talk (about their latest work, favourite movie, how amazing they are, what they are wearing, what they are doing today, NOT how much they look like my dad -- no offense, Dad), and then...ask for a pic.

Of course, I'm assuming that my brain will be working logically at that time, which in all likelihood it won't, so what the hell, "Hey!! Can I have a picture?" it is!

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