Instinctive reaction from upbringing (Singapore)

 

In the mainland Chinese drama series I'm watching now on YouTube, there's a scene (今生有你 epi.2) with the construction workers taking a lunch break.

    To leave their hands free to open the lunchbox, they park the chopsticks inside (not across) the mouth, so that they stick out of the mouth.  Watching this, my immediate reaction was, "NO NO NO!".

    As children, we were taught never to do that with cutlery.  A sudden jolt (e.g., the person's head tilting forwards from being accidentally bumped into from behind) will result in an injury to the throat.

    Another instinctive reaction from my upbringing is to instantly look for, and pick up, food morsels that have fallen out of one's mouth, whether it's onto one's own clothing, the table or the floor.

    The original source behind this practice is cooked rice grains (common ingredient in a Chinese household) that have dropped onto the floor, as they're squidgy, so they must be tracked down immediately and removed before they get trodden on, squidged into the bottom of one's foot/feet (in the tropics, we go barefoot in the house) or footwear.

    This, in itself, is a horrible enough feeling which then entails more work, washing out the sticky mess, but worse, it gets spread around the house, leaving squidgy patches on the floor for other people to step on.

(Singapore, 1960s)

Half full or half empty: 05 (Interpreting an ambiguous statement) (London)

During the lesson yesterday with an advanced level student, there was a character in a compound in the article which he hadn't come across before (or had learned but forgotten):  納 / 纳 nà / "take in / receive / accept", therefore can mean "allow".

    I told him the meaning, and tried to give him another compound that uses it which is a commonly occurring word in everyday life.  (Where the student is capable of handling extra balls, which this one certainly is -- he's like a sponge, I always throw them extra balls, giving them other permutations of a particular character.)

    The Chinese word database on my computer, however, failed to give me the combination I had in mind (納銀台 / 纳银台 / nà yín tái / "take-in silver platform", for "payment desk"), so I gave up after a couple of attempts.

    This morning, I had another go, and found what I wanted (but in a different permutation): 納款台 / 纳款台 / nà kuǎn tái / "take-in money platform".  Also 收銀台 / 收银台 / shōu yín tái / "receive silver platform".

    Ah, either 納款 / 纳款 / nà kuǎn / "take-in money" or 收銀 / 收银 / shōu yín / "receive silver".  It was either AB or XY, and I'd done it as AY.

    Sent it to the student, adding in English (before quoting the definition that I'd found online) "The brain's arrived on the slow train" and in Chinese (at the end) "哎呀，該退休了 / aiya, gāi tuìxiū le / oh dear, ought to retire now".

    The student came back with, "哈哈哈，差不多了 / hahaha, chàbùduō le / hahaha, almost".

    I took this to mean that he agreed that it was almost time for me to retire.  Oh dear, even the student thinks so.

    Just for idle conversation (I always do that to give them extra practice), I texted him with, "你是說退休啊⋯⋯⋯⋯ / nǐ shì shuō tuìxiū ah / you mean retire", with extra dots to indicate how I was feeling.

    He came back with, "没有，我是说纳款台和收银台差不多 / méiyǒu, wǒ shì shuō nàkuǎntái hé shōuyíntái chàbùduō / No, I was/am saying that 納款台 and 收銀台 are almost [the same]".

    Reprieved.  (For now.)

(London, 2026)

The guardian angels in one's life: 15 (The dour peasant woman)

I was sent this around 2006 in one of those round-robin emails:  

    "Some people come into your life for a season or a reason".

    (from googling)  The Full Saying: "People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you'll know exactly what to do," often attributed to a poem by Brian A. "Drew" Chalker.

    In the case of the dour Italian peasant woman in September 1981, it was only for the duration of the train journey from Florence to Rome.

    We didn't speak each other's language, but for my brief waking moments on that train, I'd shown her kindness the moment I entered the carriage, and she, in return, gave her second salami roll to me (which, in hindsight, I think was her dinner for the second leg of her journey -- to Naples, five hours' train journey away).  (She tried to share her can of cola with me, too, after the salami roll, but I was politely firm in not partaking -- to be covered in a different blog about the sharing of food.)

    She also turned out to be a guardian angel, if only for just a few seconds, by waking me up in time in Rome.

    A full account of how I met the dour peasant woman, and how she'd saved me from missing my plane for London, is in:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/firenze-roma-train.html 

    I still remember her with great warmth and boundless gratitude to this day.

    Grazie, signora.  God bless you.

(Rome, 1981)

What's so good about black tea? (China)

A current student texted me on WhatsApp about the pu'er tea she'd been given, packed in an orange-skin casing (hollowed-out orange).

    I responded with, Quote 普洱茶 pǔ ěr chá was a newcomer over here in the late 70s / early 80s, more often sold as a health drink (especially for weight loss??) than just "tea". Unquote

    This reminds me of a Channel Four TV docudrama series I'd worked on in 1985, called Commodities, a six-part series released in 1986 on coffee, tea and sugar.

    I've already written a blog about something behind the scenes in that series: https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2019/05/sloppy-set-up.html.

    This pu'er tea WhatsApp text conversation with the student has pulled up another memory from the depths.

    The tea episodes of the Commodities series focused on tea production in Hangzhou in S.E. China, Assam in India, and Zimbabwe.  I worked on the footage shot in China, doing the translations and helping out with the editing in the cutting room.

    One batch of rushes [unedited film footage] had the interviewer asking the tea plantation manager about the black tea that his company was exporting.

Interviewer:  What's so good about black tea?

Manager:  It's rich in ... (a long list of nutrients), and good for ... (a long list of conditions).

Interviewer:  So, do you drink it at home?

Manager:  Oh no!  I drink green tea.

    The look on his face and his tone of voice were most interesting.  If I'd been allowed to add a subtext line in the subtitles, it'd be, "(This stuff is for non-Chinese people.  We only drink the real thing.)"

(China, 1985)

* For those who might not know:  (my version in a nutshell)  The Chinese traditionally drink green tea.  Black tea is something created for the export market.  Traditional "proper" tea (i.e., green tea) is roasted once, but the moisture retention is too high for it to withstand the long sea journeys across the world -- tea clipper Cutty Sark took 100–120 days to get from China to Britain, and that was considered quick.  A double-roasted [hence the darker colour and stronger flavour] version was thus created, so that it wouldn't go mouldy during that time. 

* Clipper:  Sailing Ship.  A 19th-century fast, three-masted sailing vessel designed for speed, often used for transporting cargo like tea.

Cultural conventions: The power of kneeling (Korea / China)

An ex-student had very kindly made me a guest on his Netflix account a few years back, so I was watching quite a lot of Korean dramas.

    What I noticed was how often someone asking for forgiveness would go down on his/her knees, and how effective it is:  the person who had been angry before would almost always immediately grant his/her forgiveness.

    I've since lost access to the kind student's Netflix account, so I've switched to YouTube and started watching mainland Chinese modern-day drama series.

    The one I was watching recently is centred on an old couple with six children (all married, bar one).

    The unmarried son had brought so much upset to the family with his waywardness in one particular incident that the sister most directly affected (with serious financial and reputational consequences for her husband's business) fell out with the father (and the rest of the family) over this.

    Much later, that sister (and her husband) decided to make it up with the father who'd been deeply hurt by her behaviour and therefore not likely to forgive her that readily.

    The moment she went down on her knees (followed a second later by her husband), however, the father thawed.

    Quite an amazing bargaining tool.

(Korea / China)

One form of self-therapy: 03 (Writing to the dead person)

Another then-student in the 1990s told me about her bereavement therapy.

    Part 1:  write a letter to the dead person, then actually post the letter (to one's own address).

    Part 2:  when the letter arrives, the grieving party sits down to write a reply as the dead person.

   

    Again, like the visualisation workshop exercise, I can see how Part 1 might or can work, as it's cathartic, but I can't visualise Part 2 somehow.

One form of self-therapy: 02 (Confronting the dead person)

(From googling)

Quote

Confront means to face, meet, or deal with a person or situation directly, often in a challenging, hostile, or defiant manner. It involves presenting evidence, addressing an unpleasant issue, or standing face-to-face with someone. It commonly means tackling problems head-on rather than avoiding them. 

Unquote

I first heard about this in the mid-90s from a student who went on a holiday in Greece and attended some kind of imaging workshop.  (I think that was the word: imaging.  Or maybe it was "visualisation"?)

    This is how she'd described it to me, but in my own words as I can't remember her precise wording now.

    (Her imaging workshop experience, in my own words)

    We were given two chairs:  one for us to sit in, the other for the dead person.

    Part 1:  We'd start by telling the dead person how we'd been feeling about their death:  anything that came to our heads, just let it all out.

    Part 2:  We'd then go and sit in the other chair, and play the role of the dead person, responding to what we'd just told them.

    (End of her story, in my own words)

    Now, I can see how Part 1 might or can work, as it's cathartic, but I can't visualise Part 2 somehow.