Polishing Secretary of Justice Teresa Cheng’s English
The letter was meant for the English-speaking world but it never saw the light of day there. Last month, after the Wall Street Journal published an editorial holding the Hong Kong courts to task for putting peaceful pro-democracy figures in prison, the Secretary of Justice Teresa Cheng wrote to the paper to claim the city’s…
It’s the DSE English Language paper that deserves a bad grade
Recently, a Hong Kong parent reached out to me. My child has to sit for her DSE in a few weeks, she said. Can you help her tackle the writing section of her English Language paper on short notice? Even though I’m a writing coach, I’m probably the worst person to turn to if it’s…
Learning the ABCs of persuasive writing from 陳茂波’s WSJ letter
Many people in Hong Kong cheered when the Wall Street Journal branded Paul Chan Mo-po (陳茂波) an “illusionist” for bothering to write to the paper to persuade its readers that Hong Kong should have been included in the Heritage Foundation’s Freedom Index. A sense of vindication, however, is far from the only positive thing…
Priscilla Leung Unmasked: what her English says about her
Priscilla Leung (梁美芬） was sensible enough to remove her music video “Add little bit of love” (愛心多一點）soon after it was met with ridicule on social media (a footage of it can still be found here ). Yet the fact remains she was sufficiently lacking in good taste to have gotten it produced in the first…
Matthew Cheung is also an incompetent in another area: English writing
I know we have long given up on expecting members of our puppet government to walk their talk, but they aren’t exactly of zero value either, because when they face an international audience and can’t talk their talk in English properly, they can at least provide practical demonstrations of how not to use the language. Take for…
金針度人：我如何把英文文筆化為抗爭工具
在紀錄片裏，能看到難得一見的場景：一群經驗老到的裁縫在埋頭縫衣服，他們都是Christian Dior的巴黎高級定制工作室的員工，正忙著準備第二天要展示在T台的衣服
You are what you write: what the English of HKU president Zhang Xiang says about him
“I don’t understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little,” the founder of the House of Chanel Gabrielle Chanel once quipped. As a Hong Kong woman who writes in English professionally, I can’t help but equate a polished appearance with polished English copies. Just as none of the women…
Dancing to my own tune: pursuing artistic freedom in repressive Hong Kong
“Let me try and make her look like a ballerina,” Youtuber ballet coach Claudia Dean mused as she adjusted her sister’s shoulders, elbows, hands and neck – her sister had no dance training, and the point of the video was to show how ballet looked like when attempted by a layperson. Dean said she did…
The Makeover 陈法拉 Still Needs
Perhaps it’s because Fala Chen (陳法拉) has proved herself to be remarkably adept at reinventing herself – when I read her recent furor-causing Instagram post, I was surprised to discover that her drive for self-improvement didn’t extend to her writing skills. In response to President Trump’s move to christen the coronavirus as “Chinese Virus,” Chen wrote:…
Come Write Like Michelle 