‘Hounded out’ of Hong Kong: Cantonese teacher’s new Mallorca home celebrates her 30 years in China
Despite obvious differences, a Norwegian Cantonese teacher finds comforting parallels between her old and new homes
Fish were once carried up from the shore of El Terreno, on the Spanish island of Mallorca, and delivered through a blue-and-white doorway into a beautifully appointed fishmonger. That entrance has become a window, and the building is now home to former Hong Kong resident Cecilie Gamst Berg.
Norwegian Gamst Berg, who teaches Cantonese through her Happy Jellyfish Language Bureau, calls herself a Cantonese fundamentalist and likens her retreat to Mallorca as an exile. After 30 years in Hong Kong, she left in part because of what she calls the city’s “Mandarinification”.
Mallorca is very like Hong Kong: it’s full of expats and it’s easy to meet people. And most of all, it’s beautiful – I had to live in a beautiful place
To Gamst Berg’s relief, the transition to the Mediterranean has not been overly challenging.
“Mallorca is very like Hong Kong: it’s full of expats and it’s easy to meet people,” she says. “And most of all, it’s beautiful – I had to live in a beautiful place.”
Lamenting the never-ending development that is making Hong Kong “ugly”, she says even Lantau has not escaped the creep of concrete, citing the incinerator planned for Shek Kwu Chau and the artificial islands proposed for near Kau Yi Chau and Hei Ling Chau. “I couldn’t stand by and watch it,” she says.
Yet she hasn’t totally escaped Hong Kong in Mallorca, having met fellow Cantonese speakers as well as found a few places where she can enjoy yum cha. And she continues to write and teach (an ex-neighbour on Lantau still takes lessons with her, online), “because the fight goes on”.