It wasn't our instructor's fault--she was boundlessly enthusiastic, even on the day the building's air conditioner failed, and her students sat nearly comatose in their chairs. I certainly valued our lessons, since they did help me learn to make some sense of the language of the people around me, even if I stumbled when I tried to produce it myself. Perhaps I just didn't watch enough cheesy Cantonese period television dramas.

Ting and Meara did better, having had quite a bit of Mandarin already, and Malinda (coming from a family that spoke Cantonese) was put in a more advanced class above all of us. What we learned of grammar didn't seem difficult to me, but when it came time to actually talk... well, the only things I ever managed to say convincingly were "Good morning" and "I'll have a Coke, please." Cynthia did well with memorizing how to ask for red bean buns, which was invariably useful at dim sum, which we generally ate after our lessons in the restaurants in Yau Ma Tei.

In the end, it was Malinda we usually relied upon to tell us what was what in restaurants, and to ask the questions necessary to street survival, like "Does this bus go to Pok Fu Lam?" and "How much for that pair of shoes?" (Judging by the number of pairs she ended up with, Malinda must have been especially fluent at the latter.)

Ho-lohk, mgoi!