Wednesday, 21 May 2025

The guardian angels in one's life: 03 (The ex-tutor)


Having sort of decided to try out Linguistics as an MA subject by attending the free evening classes first, thinking, “That’s at least one decision made for now, phew!”, I then happened to mention it to Paul Thompson, my ex-tutor (academic and personal on the BA course) and ex-supervisor (on the Chinese computer research projects).

    Having the sort of mind he did, always exploring different arguments, testing them out, Paul Thompson then laid out his arguments for my case:


Quote [in the spirit of how he’d said it, as far as I can remember it]

So, you are trying out the MA option because you don’t know if you’d want to do a PhD.

[The reason he said “trying out” is:  an MA can be converted to a PhD if one so wishes and if one passes the exam at that level, or one could just leave it at an MA.]

And you’re trying out Linguistics because you don’t know whether you want to do an MA in Linguistics [or in Education].

So, you’re going for the evening classes in Linguistics to try out Linguistics, and you’re going for the MA to try out if you’d want to do a PhD.

You’re therefore trying out [Linguistics for the subject field] for the trying out [doing an MA or a PhD].

How long is that going to take you?  You might as well just go straight ahead and do the MA Linguistics, which means that you’ll at least get a master’s degree at the end of it.

Unquote


    Once he presented it like that, it was dead easy to decide.

    What a wise man he was!

(More in another blog about his earlier counselling as my BA Personal Tutor.)

(London, 1992)



Tuesday, 20 May 2025

The guardian angels in one's life: 02 (The senior colleague)


I was taken aside one day by a senior colleague who asked what I wanted to do with my life.

    That is a difficult question for a drifter to answer.  I said I was just happy to carry on with being a part-time teacher, having no ambitions at all in life.

    What I didn’t know at the time was that she was preparing me for taking over her post after her departure for her home country (a year or so later, which was not known at the time by anyone except herself).

    I said I didn't care about titles and all that.  She said having a first degree was not enough for modern-day employers, if I wanted to survive in the jobs market, suggesting that I go for at least an MA, if not a PhD.

    The next question was what to study.  She proposed Education or Linguistics since I like both.

    Being a Libran (described by some people as “the unbalanced balance” sign, constantly yo-yo-ing), it’s difficult for me when presented with a choice.  (I’m very good, however, at managing other people’s lives and making decisions for them...)  Well, this senior colleague had pointed out the way for me, and narrowed it down to two subject options.  All within five minutes of a face-to-face conversation.

    As staff could attend for free, I thought I’d try out the basic Linguistics course on the university’s evening programme, and see how I’d feel about Linguistics on an MA level.

    With the balls set rolling for doing post-graduate studies and which subject to pursue, the ball was now in my court to act on it.  (Enter the next guardian angel, in the next blog.)


(London, 1991)



The guardian angels in one's life: 01 (The Peruvian boy who adopted me)


[This story was first published as Cuzco chico (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/cuzco-chico_15.html), but I cannot do a series on guardian angels without him leading off the collection, so here he is again, in case you haven't already read Cuzco chico.  Re-reading it myself still brings tears to my eyes, as when I first wrote the story.]


Being one who always gets in the wrong queue, trust me to go and choose to be the adventurous traveller at the wrong time in Cuzco in November 1987, and go on standby for a plane to Lima.

    There had been a spate of train robberies, even on the Pullmans where carriages could be locked up to ensure robbers couldn’t get in — yet, somehow they did.  So, everyone decided to fly.

    On top of that, I had also gone and set up a domino effect by building up onward flights practically back-to-back:  Lima to London — arriving about 8pm, stay the night, then London to Zurich on the first plane the next day.  This meant that I could not afford to miss the mid-day flight out of Lima.  I also had to fly in from Cuzco the day before and stay the night in Lima, as there were no flights from Cuzco to get me into Lima before mid-day.

    When I got to the Cuzco airport, the queues for the (only) two airlines were at least 50 deep, with two flights per airline to Lima.  Gulp.

    David the Canadian and I decided to take a queue each, and call each other over when we got to the counter.

    Airline A’s flight 1 filled up, then Airline B’s flight 1.  Double gulp.  Two down, two to go.  Then that’s it for the day.  Eek.

    I thought I’d talk to the blonde gringa in front of me to make me feel better — you know, “fellow sufferers in the same boat”kind of thing.  She turned out to be an off-duty KLM stewardess, and would therefore get preferential treatment as airline staff.  Oh dear.  I could see myself scrambling for another flight to London, and another one to Zurich.  And she had her husband with her, which meant one more seat taken.  Groan.

    I’d put my name down for Airline B’s waiting list for flight 2, and saw that I was number 129.  Fat chance of getting on.

    As I stood in Airline A’s queue, about 20 behind, telling myself I just wasn’t cut out for the last-minute standby style of travelling, my quiet panic was interrupted by a voice, in Spanish, “Señorita, is this your bag?”

    I found myself looking down at the face from which had emanated that question — it belonged to a boy of about 8.  I nodded mutely, not twigging what it was about.

    The boy spoke again, in Spanish:  “Give me your passport and air ticket.”  I handed them over.

    Picking up my soft bag, he marched past the other 20 people in the queue, and went straight up to the counter, where the clerk was checking in a gringo passenger whose luggage was already on the weighing scales. 

    The boy slapped my documents onto the counter and said to the clerk, in Spanish, “Hola, Juan.  This is my señorita friend’s passport, plane ticket, and here is her luggage.”

    Juan pushed aside the items he was in the middle of processing, dealt with my case, handed over my passport, plane ticket and boarding pass to the boy, then went back to the previous passenger (who, surprisingly, did not protest, probably because he wasn’t quite sure what was happening, as it’d all taken place so quickly).

    When the boy came back to me, I was still standing in the queue, stunned by what my eyes were witnessing.

    He said, in Spanish, handing over each document as he called them out, “Señorita, here is your passport, here is your plane ticket, here is your boarding pass.  Now follow me, quick!  The plane’s leaving soon!”

    I followed him in a daze through the crowds in the main hall.

    At the departure lounge gate, he greeted the burly guard with cheery familiarity, in Spanish, “¡Hola, Pedro.  This is my señorita friend.  She’s catching the flight to Lima that’s leaving very soon.”

    Pedro let me through with only a cursory glance at my boarding pass — any friend of the boy’s was good enough, it seemed.

    The boy pointed out the plane on the tarmac, saying, in Spanish, “That’s your plane.  Quick go!”

    Then, he solemnly shook my hand, said, “Adios, señorita,” and turned to leave.  He wasn’t even expecting to be paid!

    I recovered in time from my dazed state and pulled out all the Peruvian notes and coins I had in my trouser pockets, calling out, “Chico!” and put the lot into his little hand.

    He looked taken aback.  I closed his fingers around the money and gave him a bear hug, blinking back the grateful tears.  (Crying now as I re-read this.  I shall be forever moved by the memory of it, however many times I recall it.)

    I got on the plane very shortly before it took off for Lima.

    To this day, I have no idea why the boy singled me out.  I was standing there minding my own business — even if panicking inwardly.

    The only explanation I can think of is that I was the only one in the queue who looked local, as the rest were all gringos and gringas.  I’d been mistaken for one everywhere I went in Peru and would get — without asking for — lower quotes for things like camping equipment than those for gringos fluent in Spanish. 

    He probably adopted me as I looked like a Peruana.

    The boy was my heaven-sent guardian angel.


(Peru, Nov 1987)





Monday, 19 May 2025

The guardian angels in one's life: 00 (An introduction)

 


This series follows on from the blog The concept of 贵人 in the Chinese culture” (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-concept-of-in-chinese-culture.html).

    It is difficult to decide how to present all the guardian angel episodes in my life.  

    Certainly not in the order of importance or significance, for they’re all important and significant in their separate ways.

    Publishing them in a chronological order might mean the blogs taking a while to produce, as I’ll need to trawl through my memory bank for the episodes that do come under this category, risking some surfacing afterwards, having been missed out in the first round, thus making a rod for my own back. 

    So, I shall present them as and when they crop up in my head, which is rather how recollections work in real life anyway — a bit random, depending on the trigger.  It doesn’t matter that much that they don’t follow a time line, I feel.



Sunday, 18 May 2025

The concept of 貴人 / 贵人 in the Chinese culture


貴人 / 贵人

guìrén

“valuable person”


There is more than one translation for this term:

(i) an imperial title (royal concubine)

(ii) distinguished person

(iii) benefactor


It’s the third meaning I’m focusing on here.  

    “Benefactor" doesn't quite convey the significance of 貴人 to a Chinese person.  The dictionary definitions of "benefactor" that I've found are:

* an individual that provides money or other resources to an individual, group, or organization

* a person who gives money or other help to a person or cause


    The second definition is closer to the Chinese perspective that I have in mind here.  One Chinese definition of 人 is: 


对自己有利、帮助自己或会为自己带来好运的人

(my translation) a person who brings benefit to one / who helps one / who brings good luck to one


    In Chinese fortune telling (which includes palm reading), 貴人 features fairly frequently, especially in the context of when one’s life has taken a turn for the worse — the fortune teller might see a 貴人 on the horizon who will come along and help one out, not necessarily monetarily.

    A 貴人 can be someone who’ll only appear on the one occasion, then disappear, never to be seen again.

    Can be a total stranger, doesn't have to be someone in one’s own circles.

    My own take on it is that a closer English equivalent is a non-Christian “guardian angel”.

    One dictionary definition of “guardian angel”: a type of angel assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group or nation.

    I have had quite a number of guardian angels in my life, who turned up unexpectedly to render help totally unsolicited.  Yes, I do feel very blessed indeed.

    Some of them I’d never seen before and never saw again (like the little boy in Cusco/Cuzco Airport, Peru, in 1987).  Some of them had been around in my life for a little while, then stepped in to help, again unsolicited, then went out of my life.

    They will be acknowledged in a collection for self publication (to come when ready after the first collection, A collection of animal stories, which is still waiting in the wings — I must get my skates on and stop tinkering…).

    I wake up every day thanking God and my guardian angels for having helped me get through another day reasonably unscathed.



Saturday, 17 May 2025

Breaking the (attention) circuit (London)

A friend’s spouse is going through a psychotic phase.  I suggested that the spouse be given a blog of mine that she had read before and enjoyed when it first came out, as a distraction.


    It worked a bit, in the sense that the spouse remembered the episode featured in the blog, and laughed about it, which probably kept her happy for a little while, distracting her from her psychotic state.  Like my distraction therapy for myself (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2025/05/chinese-sayings-38.html).


    This suggestion of mine (that the friend should get the spouse to read my blog which she’d enjoyed the first time round) came from an episode one summer’s day on Highbury Fields in north London.


    A child was walking along, a part-eaten apple in hand, crying her heart out.  Maybe she’d seen the ice cream van but was told by the adults that she couldn't have one (ice cream, not van).


    She was bawling and bawling, then she noticed the part-eaten apple in her hand.  She stopped crying, took a bite out of the apple, chewed the mouthful of apple, swallowed it, then went back to bawling.


    It got me thinking at the time, “So, that heart-rending sound [the crying] was for effect then, to get what she wanted, or what?”


    Whatever, she was still distracted long enough by the apple to put her grief (whatever it was over) on hold until she’d had another bite at it.


(London, 1980s)



Isolated mountain village (China)


In 1978 when I first went to SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), I came across a mainland Chinese publication called China Pictorial (中国画报 Zhōngguó Huàbào), a magazine that has more pictures than words (photojournalism as we’d call it).


    In one of the issues, there was a piece by a Chinese journalist who went to a mountain village.


    It had one road in and out, therefore little contact with the outside world.  Surrounded on all three sides by mountains.


    Main diet was millet, vegetables, and the occasional meat. 


    The journalist went there because a high percentage of the population there were over 65.  Of those over 65, there were quite a few over 80.  Of the over 80s, there were some over 100.


    The journalist interviewed two members of the older ones.


    One was a woman aged 103 or something who stayed at home to look after the youngest generation while the three generations in between (children, grandchildren, great grandchildren) went out to work in the fields.  She also cooked lunch for them (maybe even dinner, as they would be tired after working out in the fields all day).


    The other person interviewed was an old man aged 105 or something.  He was photographed out in his field, leaning against his hoe, with a Chinese pipe (long and thin, very small bowl), filled with homegrown tobacco.  


    The journalist asked him, “How long have you been a smoker?”


    The old man said, “85 years.”


    So, it was not the smoking but the lack of stress, the journalist said.  And the healthy diet.


(China, 1978)