En route to Taipei to start my two-year stint with Conoco Taiwan, I stopped over in Hong Kong for two half days and one night.
I was walking around, window-shopping. Outside one of the shops I stopped at, to look at their window displays, the sales assistant said to me, in Cantonese, “You’re not from Hong Kong, are you?” I hadn’t said a word, so how did he know?? He said, “Because you’re carrying an umbrella. No Hong-Kongese would carry an umbrella. They’ll just dive into one of the shop verandahs and wait for the rain to pass.”
In Taipei, I went to a shop in one of the back alleyways behind our office block to get my photos developed. I handed over my film, they gave me a receipt and told me when to go back to collect.
On collection day, I went back. My prints were in one envelope. The negatives were cut into strips of six, encased in a plastic sheet with a slot for each strip. If you wanted re-prints, they would give you a waxy pencil with which to write the number of prints you wanted on the plastic sheet, over the relevant negative. This could then be wiped off with a cloth once the order was met.
I was writing out the numbers, without saying a word, when the shop assistant said to me, in Mandarin, “You’re not from here, are you?” How did he know? I hadn’t said a word! He pointed at the hand holding the waxy pencil and said, “Because you’re writing with your left hand. No Taiwanese would be writing with their left hand.”
On collection day, I went back. My prints were in one envelope. The negatives were cut into strips of six, encased in a plastic sheet with a slot for each strip. If you wanted re-prints, they would give you a waxy pencil with which to write the number of prints you wanted on the plastic sheet, over the relevant negative. This could then be wiped off with a cloth once the order was met.
I was writing out the numbers, without saying a word, when the shop assistant said to me, in Mandarin, “You’re not from here, are you?” How did he know? I hadn’t said a word! He pointed at the hand holding the waxy pencil and said, “Because you’re writing with your left hand. No Taiwanese would be writing with their left hand.”
(Hong Kong, 1974; Taipei, 1975)
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