What is the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin and Chinese?

To understand it the easy way, there is one written language (*Chinese) shared by many spoken languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese, etc) in China.

Some more details:

(1) Mandarin is the official spoken language in China, spoken by most Chinese people (as first or second language - some Chinese have their own regional languages)

(2) Chinese government called Cantonese a dialect; while in fact it's a language

(3) Cantonese is the official spoken language in Hong Kong and Macau and the sixth biggest language (by speakers' population) in the world (second biggest in China)

(4) Cantonese is more difficult to learn than Mandarin (mostly because it has 9 tones, Mandarin "only" has 4)

(5) Hong Kong people take so much pride in Cantonese - we think Mandarin is "meh" 

Flash cards for learning Cantonese. Not my creation.

*There are actually two versions of Chinese writings: Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. Simplified Chinese sucks.

Hong Kong—In China's Shadow

Go look at Mark Leong's photography of Hong Kong here. The title "Hong Kong—In China's Shadow" is very fitting. It does show the density, complexity and anxiety of HK (in the backdrop of China).

Photo by Mark Leong

#WTFHK - A classic meme in HK - Bus Uncle

Bus Uncle was a huge viral meme back in 2007 in HK. Truly classic.

The story goes like this: Bus Uncle was talking on phone loudly (this happens often in HK), the young guy behind him patted Uncle's shoulder and asked him to lower the voice.

And then you can see what happened afterwards in this video.

The beauty of this video is that Bus Uncle's way of cursing is very sophisticated and ingenious.

"If I can't f__k your mom, who the f__k should I f__k?"

-Bus Uncle

Bus Uncle got famous and then he went for the Chief Executive (head of HK) election. There are weird people in HK... 

Sleeping dogs

Sleeping Dogs are a big thing in Hong Kong now. 

(*Sleeping Dogs is Grand Theft Auto (GTA) with a Hong Kong map.)

Here's a real sleeping dog.