For the two years that Conoco Taiwan was drilling off the west coast of Taiwan, it was decided that it would be much easier to fly over from Singapore (the hub for the oil wells in Indonesian/Malaysian waters) all the oil rig personnel, because of the hassle involved in getting them visas and accommodation in Taiwan.
The men worked two-week shifts on the rig, so there was a fortnightly flight carrying them from, then back to, Singapore on the company’s Electra plane.
The Singapore office would throw in a black doctor’s medical bag containing correspondence between the Singapore and Taipei offices. This didn’t take up much room, so my eldest sister (who was at the time the geological secretary in the Singapore office) would throw in all sorts of goodies for me: a scarf/hat/shawl set knitted by her for me, and other things that I wouldn’t be able to get in Taiwan.
One day, a packet of durian* sweets turned up in the bag, so I went round the office, offering them to my colleagues. They said, “Oh, are you treating us to sweets?” which, in Chinese, is: 请吃糖 qǐng chī táng / “treat eat sugar”. The Chinese make a lot of remarks that a Brit would find too obvious (and therefore totally unnecessary), such as “Ah, you’ve come back” / “Ah, you’re home”, so I thought nothing of it, and said, “Yes!” Everyone laughed and asked me when the happy event would be taking place.
It turned out that the Chinese way of announcing one’s engagement is to offer sweets to friends and colleagues.
If one wanted to know when a friend or colleague would be getting married, one would ask, "When are you going to treat us to some sweets?"（什么时候请我们吃糖啊？ shénme shíhòu qǐng wǒmen chī táng ah?）
*durian: a spiky tropical fruit the size of a rugby ball that’s native to S.E.Asia. Regarded by the locals as the “king of fruits”, it is similar to cheese and marmite in the intense love/hate feelings it arouses.
(Taiwan, 1975)
I would like to try the durian..I have never found a fruit I do not like
ReplyDeleteWesterners have a most disgusting description for it, which I shan't repeat here (the smell is, according to them, a mixture of smell X and smell Y). But then, what I grew up calling "sea cucumber" has also been given the revolting name of "sea slug", which is very off-putting. Durian is like cheese, in the sense that if you like it, it'll smell/taste nice. Ditto the strong cheeses which can be really revolting to cheese-haters but heavenly to cheese-lovers. Ditto Marmite: either you love it or hate it. There's a saying in Chinese (in Singapore/Malaysia): when the durian comes on the market, a skint Malay person will pawn his sarong just to get his hands on one, as it's so irresistible.
ReplyDeleteI had to make a Google search to find what the smell is like:
ReplyDeletehere is what the Smithsonian writes:
"turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock"
and:
"the notorious Asian fruit has such a potent stench that it’s banned on the Singapore Rapid Mass Transit."
more at
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-does-the-durian-fruit-smell-so-terrible-149205532/
Now I am really curious to try it...
Turpentine and onions, even with a gym sock, is not so revolting a combination. Clue: the 2 smells I heard some British journalist on Radio 4 used to describe durian are lavatorial, one from each end of the body.
DeleteDurian being banned: I heard about the incident that had triggered this. Some passenger decided to take some durian on board as cabin luggage one day. The other passengers protested about the smell, so s/he was told to leave the fruit behind. The smell lingered, so they got the cleaners in and waited for a while (evacuating people to go and wait in the airport building). No joy. After a few more times of this, they decided to abandon the plane altogether and fly the passengers out on another plane. The pongy plane was left sitting on the tarmac, with the doors open, all day, overnight and over the next day, I think, but still the smell lingered. After that, they put up a sign in the airport corridors: No durians beyond this point.
ReplyDelete