In many schools in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong, Cantonese is the medium of instruction, though the students are taught to read and write standard Chinese, which they read with Cantonese pronunciation. Cantonese is also the main language of business, the media and government in both Hong Kong and Macau.
Early Years. Famed novelist John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. His books, including his landmark work The Grapes of Wrath (1939), often dealt with social and economic issues. Steinbeck was raised with modest means. His father, John Ernst Steinbeck, tried his hand at several different jobs to keep his family fed: He owned a feed-and-grain store, managed a flour plant and served as treasurer of Monterey County. His mother, Olive Hamilton Steinbeck, was a former schoolteacher.
In 1940, John Steinbeck ventured on a marine collecting expedition to Baja California, a peninsula off Mexico's west coast; he found more signs of life in the tidal pools than on land. His Log from the Sea of Cortez speaks of an ocean's edge inhabited by crabs, prickly urchins, and white periwinkles.