Another Day Grinding Mandarin in Hong Kong 🇭🇰

What's up, grinders? Welcome back to the channel. So, it is currently 4:00 p.m. and I'm starting this vlog. Why am I starting at 4:00 p.m.? Well, this one needed to sleep in and she only just woke up. No, I'm joking. I'm joking, okay? I'm not joking. She seriously slept in, guys. So, as I said, we're starting today a little bit later. I've already done 47 minutes of production practice. That was a lot of reviews and I was practicing sentences related to some things I've actually need to say while I was here, but I wasn't too sure about. Uh this morning my wife actually woke up with something going on with her throat. She was unable to talk. It was absolute bliss for about 2 hours until she had soup and then she was talking again and then, you know, everything ended. My happiness, everything's gone. Joking, but that seriously did happen. But now she's actually distressed about her cat because every time she contacts her mother-in-law who's looking after our cat, mother-in-law's not contactable and for whatever reason, uh I don't know. She's out traveling or something and my wife is like, "Oh, but then who's looking after our cat?" And my mother-in-law's like, "I'm looking after it." And she's like, "Well, you're not. You're out all day, so my cat needs love and attention." So, she's really stressed about that right now. Okay, so it's time for us to finally eat some traditional Hong Kong takeaway type of food. This is basically what Hong Kong McDonald's in a way. >> Not really. >> Not really, but it is a takeaway, yes? >> No, this is dine in McDonald's. >> Is it What? I know it's dine in, but I mean like this is their version of takeaway. Bastard. That's Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. We're heading towards the night market now and um earlier today I actually grabbed some McDonald's uh for varying reasons. It was pissing down rain. It was like literally the closest shop, so I went there. And normally I wouldn't eat McDonald's in Australia just because it's very plasticky, oily, sweet, and like nothing tastes like what it should actually taste like. And if you walk into a McDonald's in Australia, everyone is just super fat. But here, I walked into a McDonald's, everyone was skinny. And then I bought it, and it was like I got like a beef burger or something, and it was actually good. Like it didn't taste anything like the Australian McDonald's. And I looked it up online, there's like a whole heap of regulations apparently here in Hong Kong, okay. But additionally, their meat actually comes from Australia, but they have more meat in their beef patties than Australia does in theirs. Just due to the competition between McDonald's and Hungry Jack's in Australia. So, I get more Australian meat in a McDonald's in Hong Kong than I do in Australia. Okay, so we've just found a night market, and it's time to explore. Now, on the way here, we bumped into a whole heap of little stalls, and they're all selling let's just say um particular nightlife tools for the ladies, okay. Like there was like six or seven in a row. I didn't even know like they could just put that on the street cuz there was literally just kids like walking straight past that type of stuff. What's up, grinders? It's uh the next day. Didn't film, you know, the end of yesterday's video. That's because well, we were just busy doing stuff, and we had to come back. But uh we ordered some takeaway this morning. Bro, look how Look how small this meal is, okay? You got like two little round things in here. And my [laughter] wife wants you guys to see this, okay? This is a full meal, by the way, that she ordered. I think us Australians are just accustomed to being fat at this point. Like there's there's no way this is legitimately a full meal. Like it's it's like 20% of these containers, if that. And then I got my tiny ass little Coke again. >> [laughter] >> She's going to eat all that, and I'm going to starve. So, I'm going to go find myself some food. By the way, I wasn't joking about that. I am legitimately going to can get myself some food now because uh she will definitely eat all that. That is That was That was labeled as like a full meal, but it's she's probably going to be hungry after that. I'm going to have to find us something. So, additionally in other news, her throat is killing her. She can barely talk today. She's been coughing constantly all night. But apart from that, her energy levels are are completely fine. My back is doing okay. It's not the greatest, but like it's okay. Now, as part of these videos, I've been showing you guys basically my daily production practice. And I get this comment every now and then where people are like, "What do you mean you're doing production practice? Why not just talk with your wife in Chinese?" For those who are not in a relationship, let me just explain. Like, you may have a partner who speaks your target language. It does not mean that they will help you learn that language or they're even like equipped to do so. Like, they they know how to do in a good way, okay? So, my wife is not the teaching type. She's not good at teaching people new skills, okay? She's very good at doing things, but she's not that she hasn't got the patience for that type of stuff. So, I'm not going to force her into a role that she doesn't want to do. And in all honesty, I actually make better progress just by myself. So, yes, I do talk to her in Chinese, but I don't sit there doing specific targeted production practice with her about specific topics. It's just not what she's interested in. And if you ever end up getting a partner, for those of you who don't have partners, okay, in your target language, that doesn't mean you get a free teacher. In fact, it means you're probably just going to have to work harder by yourself. Now, it does not mean that she doesn't help me learn Chinese. No, she teaches me new words and structures every now and then or corrects me when I make mistakes. But could you imagine, let's say you don't like teaching, and someone wants to sit down with you for an hour every day and just drill certain language patterns? Like, that's not going to go down too well. Okay, so just finished having a quick meal and now I'm just heading back to the room where the wife currently is and we need to pack up because we're actually changing hotel. We didn't want to, but suddenly they jacked up the price, so we're going to. Okay, so we've just checked out of the hotel now. We're waiting for a bus to go to our next destination. We figured we'd just go out exploring here, see if there's anything worth snacking on. Right now we are in Kowloon. Kowloon? Kowloon. So, Kowloon walled city. It's actually quite famous. I'd actually heard about this place previously and I told my wife about it while we were here. I gave her some history on the the apartment buildings and stuff that were built here, the highly dense nature of it all because obviously I did a react to a video where MatPat was playing a game ages ago and I did a react in Mandarin Chinese, so that was quite funny. We're just kind of sitting in this exhibit of like a shop, I guess. Yeah. Not sure what we're doing. Okay, there you've got a menu. Actually, babe, can you tell me what is that character? >> I think it's seven. >> Seven? See, doesn't look anything like it. Okay, what about that one? >> Eight. >> So, an English eight? >> Yeah. >> So, these are like English 10 7? Jesus, I I I literally thought this was like some random Cantonese numbering system. What about this one then? You are the worst Chinese person ever. I've actually got a bit of a funny story. I didn't record this at the time when I was in the McDonald's, but while I was there I had like a ticket that I purchased and the guy called out the number and I was the only person waiting, okay? But he called it out in Cantonese and kind of just like stood there and then stared at me and I stared back. So I looked at my ticket, read it back to him in Mandarin and he was like, >> [laughter] >> He's like one person waiting in the shop and the language he reverts to in Cantonese and I'm a white guy. I saw a message in the members section of Discord from Sodo and he was asking about, you know, what do I do when I feel stuck trying to produce under pressure, you know, like almost blocked in the moment. Realistically, the only thing you can do in that scenario is you need to practice those scenarios beforehand. Like I get this all the time cuz like obviously I'm not fluent yet in the language or at least not in Mandarin, okay. For example, today I was at the McDonald's and I saw one of the machines was broken and I wanted to tell one of the staff, okay. Now, in the moment I was like, I think I can say this, but I just won't because like I wasn't quite sure if my wording would be correct, okay. And then obviously I went back, I looked it up, I practiced that scenario a little bit this morning and now I can perfectly talk my way through it. I probably could have, but like just in the moment I just didn't feel like it was automatically coming out. So realistically, the way around that is you just need to practice your in a ton of different scenarios. The more you practice, the more you get used to it and the more it all automatically comes out when the time is needed. Hey guys, okay. [laughter] So me and my wife have a little bit of a battle right now. So we've noticed that when we do walking together, okay, I end up doing more steps at the end of the day than her by several thousand and her conclusion is it's because I'm shorter than her and I take little tiny steps, but the like I'm >> [laughter] [gasps] >> It's got nothing to do with the fact I'm bigger than her and she walks like an elephant. She walks like this. Jesus, I almost dropped my phone. Don't ask me why I'm filming this. This just kind of looks cool. I just like the the aesthetic here. It's kind of like I'm looking at this and I just imagine that there's a like a ton of Cantonese speaking [ __ ] ninjas hiding behind the walls and [ __ ] and then jump out and [ __ ] dice us. So, what what do you think it looks like? >> Looks like the movie filming Cambodia called um >> Tomb Raider? >> Tomb Raider, yeah. >> Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit like that here, eh? Can you do that? Can you climb up the walls like she does in Tomb Raider? >> I won't be with you. >> You won't be with the [ __ ] [laughter] Okay, so we're at this temple here and just about 10 minutes ago I was speaking with a Dallas priest here. Asked him about their beliefs and stuff because obviously I I don't know too much about it. But I was actually more fascinated in how it administratively works, okay? Like as in how the religion works. And apparently most of the priests here they they basically just volunteer at this. So, they'll be like a priest during the day and then other days they will literally be like a dentist or something like that, you know? They'll just have a normal job. So, the majority of them are actually retired people and then they become the priests. Uh however, it's not an easy process. Apparently there is a course, like a university style course, but it's only for Dallas priests. And to get on that course, well it doesn't happen like every year at set times. It's actually quite rare when it happens. Like apparently the last one was like 7 years ago or something. So, he's saying like for people who want to become one they actually it's just a waiting game. Like eventually they might open up a course and then you can go on, you can join, you will get your membership and you can become like a a What is it? Dallas Dallas priest, okay? So, yeah, it was it was quite interesting diving into their beliefs. >> Three times and this is the fourth time. >> My wife told me while doing the prayer I should have only bowed three times, not four times. But I said I don't follow no rules. I make the rules around here. So, they're going to listen to my four nods rather than three." Okay, so we're just here. We've got our bags. Um we're waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to our next hotel. Now, see us before uh we're rocking up here. God, I got to find somewhere there's goddamn no noise in the city, eh? It's so goddamn hard. Anyway, so before we came here, we grabbed a meal. And every time we go to grab a meal, when my wife speaks, she always speaks in English. And I asked her, I was like, "Okay, why are you speaking English?" And she's like, "Well, I've heard from a lot of my friends that when they come here and they speak Mandarin Chinese, there's actually kind of like a discrimination against them because a lot of, you know, people in Hong Kong, they don't like China uh due to, you know, many, many different reasons, okay? Like, you could imagine the reasons. But anyway, and therefore, there's discrimination. So, she speaks English to just avoid that, okay? But I'm here to practice Chinese, so I don't give a [ __ ] Well, that's my thinking. So, even though this is, you know, they speak Guangdonghua here or Yueyu, um I I'm still going to practice my Putonghua, my standard Chinese, okay? So, I asked for the white stuff. Oh, where's the toilet? You know, cesuo zai na. And this woman pointed to the back, and she's like, "Oh, it's just down there." And she was obviously speaking Chinese, okay? And I walked to the back of the shop, and there's basically two doors, and they're not marked. So, I was like, uh which one is it? And there's an old Chinese lady there who works at the restaurant. And I was like, uh uh Putonghua yisi, cesuo zai na? And this woman looks at me, and just was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no." Like saying something in Cantonese. I was like, "Oh, okay, she probably doesn't speak, you know, Chinese. So, I I tried one more time. I was like, "Toilet and she was like, and like was like completely blowing me off, okay. So, I just spoke in English. I was like, "Do you know where the toilet is?" And she still kept blowing me off. And then the young lady who like took our order at the front was running towards the back and she, you know, says to the old woman, obviously in Cantonese, that we have ordered. And then the old woman's like, "Toilet, you know, all that type of good stuff, you know, you need to go that way" type of thing. And I was like, I was annoyed, okay, because she straight-up understood Mandarin Chinese perfectly fine, but she was pretending not to speak any other language in order to just not tell me where the toilet is because obviously she thought I just walked in off the street or something and I was just out here to, you know, just use that toilet for free. Then I went to the toilet, bro. It looked like there was a [ __ ] nuclear bomb went off in there. Someone dropped the biggest turd that clogged up the toilet. The water had flooded the entire toilet like that depth of water and there was like floating islands all along through it, okay. And I was like, "What the fuck?" And I just turned around and walked out and I was like, I saw the old woman. I was like, "Is the toilet broken?" And she was like, "Broken?" And the gentleman, you know, I was like, "Yeah, broken. Water everywhere." You know, there's water everywhere and then I just like walked off. And I don't know. There was just something about this whole interaction that just kind of annoyed me overall because she just pretended not to speak any of the languages that I knew, okay, even though she clearly did. I don't know. I'm just I'm just letting you guys know the experience here. So, I don't think that was because I was speaking Chinese. I think that was legitimately just because she just obviously didn't want to help someone who randomly walked up the street. But the way she was blowing me off, it was just it was pretty rude. So, I'm finally on the shuttle bus, ready to head to the next hotel. >> Okay, so we've just arrived at the hotel lobby. As you can see, we are currently checking in right now. Uh this is a bit of a fancy job. Check this out. Very like that. You could fit like 10 rooms from ground to floor just for the lobby. Anyway, uh this is a five-star hotel because your boy Yevl Dear needs nothing less. Um I'm actually a little bit tired right now. I should really check my stats where I'm up to today. Okay, so apparently I've done 15,000 steps as you can see right here, and I've done over 40 minutes of production practice. Obviously, I use Chinese a little bit in real life while I'm here. I know you some of you guys probably want to actually see videos of me speaking, you know, Chinese with locals and stuff, but it's always it's always a bit awkward, you know, just trying to shove a camera in someone's face while you're having a conversation. So, unless like someone agrees to that, I I kind of feel weird just doing that. So, yeah. Okay, so I'm in the new hotel room, and apparently we got three beds. I don't know who's crashing with us tonight, but it's going to be a party. >> [laughter] >> No, I'm just joking. Anyway, uh I would show you outside, but it's dark. Got a TV, which I'm not going to use. A fridge, which I'm not going to use. A bathroom, which I might use. And then this very mysterious large cabinet thingy right here. Ooh, look at that. Look, I even got an iron I'm not going to use. I got so much stuff in this hotel I'm totally not going to use, but it's awesome. Oh, okay, fine. She wants me to show you guys the bathroom. Okay, so there you go. That's the bathroom. That is a sink, and that I'm going to use. >> [laughter] >> Anyway, that's pretty much it. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. See you all in the next one. If you're not there, I figure you've moved on with your life and you don't want to hear from me anymore, and I will find you and murder you.