Prosopagnosia: 02 (London)

 

A Libyan academic I’d met some ten years back came over to London two years ago to visit her daughter who’s doing her PhD (in translating for subtitles) here.  She arranged to meet me for tea, bringing her daughter along to meet me.  I saw them again a few days later before she returned to Tripoli.

A few weeks later, I was walking along to the library when a young woman coming from the other direction greeted me in a way that suggested she knew me.  I wasn’t quite able to place her, but said hello back, and moved on because I had a Skype lesson to do.  It later occurred to me that she must’ve been an ex-student Nicole whom I’d taught in 2008 or 2009.

A few more days on, I got into a Tube train carriage, and there she was again.  I sat down next to her, and asked her, “So what are you doing now?”  I was thinking of her movements after finishing her first degree.  

She said, “I’m doing a PhD.”  

I said, “Oh, where and in what?”  

She said, “SOAS.  Translating for subtitles.” 

I said, “Ah!!  I know someone who’s doing a PhD at SOAS in translating for subtitles!  Maybe you could get together and swap notes!”

She said, “That’s me!” and gave me a strange look.

Oh dear.  Oops.

(London, 2019) 

Don't touch my hair (UK)

BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour today touched upon hair discrimination: people with Afro hair having people touching (without consent) and making all sorts of (mostly negative) comments about their hair.  The word “micro-aggression” is mentioned in association with this.

This calls to mind my own experience with older Chinese women in my younger days on two occasions.

The first happened when I was 25 years old — young to a Chinese woman in her 50s, as I’d be her daughter’s age.  It was my first interpreting assignment up in Accrington (in the Manchester area of England for those who don’t know the geography).  

The delegation of four had come over on a training course, learning how to take apart textile machinery and make minor repairs.  Their factory near Shanghai had bought a consignment of textile machines from a factory in Accrington.  They wanted to learn how to do the minor repairs themselves rather than wait for the British engineer to fly out, although it was in their contract, because it’d be precious down time for them while waiting for the engineer to get his visa and plane ticket.

Madam Shi was a bit of an outlier.  She was the only woman in the group.  She was the head of the factory, with the other three being the engineers, so she was their boss, although post-1949 mainland Chinese are very good about being egalitarian in their treatment of people below them.  

It was also her first time abroad (this was 1979 when the Chinese didn’t get to go abroad much, if at all).  She was in a Western country (culturally different), and didn’t speak any English at all.  So it was natural that she should take to me, especially since I’d be her daughter’s age.  Whenever I spoke to her or the delegation as a group, this lady would stroke my hair, or move or re-arrange stray strands of hair — off my forehead, off my shoulders, to the back of my head.

The second time, I was at an exhibition of old photographs of the first Chinatowns in Britain (in Liverpool and London).  It was hosted by the Xinhua News Agency (New China News Agency, China’s official news agency).  I was in my late 20s, still young in the eyes of a Chinese person in his/her 50s.  A woman in her 50s from Xinhua came up to me, the only other Chinese person at the exhibition at the time, and started to ask me where I was from, what I was doing in the UK, whether I was married, etc.  While she was conducting this conversation with me, she was, like the textile delegation lady, re-arranging my hair at the same time.

Although I didn’t like being touched, especially by a total stranger, I was only irritated on both occasions about the invasion of privacy, nothing as strong as feeling insulted, offended, outraged.  This is because in the Chinese culture, this hair touching is a show of affection for a younger person who could’ve been their daughter.  (It’s not done by older men to younger men, nor by older women to younger men — it’s a strictly woman-to-woman thing).  When they’re both in a Western country,  it is also a gesture of camaraderie between Chinese people in a foreign land.  And, of course, camaraderie between women as well.

(UK, 1979 and early 1980s)

Loss of sense of smell and taste (London)

BBC World Service’s feature on people not regaining their sense of smell immediately after recovering from Covid reminds me of what happened to me in 1987/8 when I lost my sense of smell.

I’d spent three weeks in Peru in October/November 1987, then flown straight out to Switzerland the day after I got back to London.  October/November is Peru’s late spring / early summer, as it’s in the southern hemisphere, while it is late autumn / early winter here in Europe.  It must’ve been the switch from one climate zone to the other that brought on a heavy cold and bad cough.  After a week of coughing and blowing my nose, I completely lost my sense of smell.  Everything tasted like sawdust.  (Good time for dieting, I thought.)

It went on for a couple of months.  

I was invited to a New Year’s Eve dinner party by a colleague who’d done all the cooking, including quail for the main course.  I was sat on his right at the table, so he asked me during the quail course, “How is it?”  The true answer would’ve been “Tasteless!” but I couldn’t bring myself to say it, even though I had a good reason for it.  I’d felt a tangy sensation on my tongue, so I went for, “There’s vinegar in it, isn’t there?”  He said yes, and luckily didn’t press me for an answer.  Phew.

I then read somewhere that it’s very common for the sense of smell to go during a cold or flu, and that taking zinc would restore it.  So, I got some zinc supplements.  A couple of weeks later, my sense of smell returned.  

I then wished it hadn’t, for with my sense of smell restored, I could smell everything on my peak-hour Tube train journeys to work: body odour, unwashed bodies/hair/coats, bad breath, cheap perfume.

(London, 1987/8)

More haste, less speed (Singapore)

Radio 4’s programme on anatomy has just reminded me of what happened at secondary school when I was 14.

We had to draw a cockroach for one of our biology classes.  I’m terrified of cockroaches.  The fact that this one was preserved in formaldehyde didn’t make my terror any less.  I was the first to finish drawing it.

The following week, it came back with the comment:  “This doesn’t look like a cockroach at all.  Do it again.”

More haste, more agony.

(Singapore, 1960s)

Unconscious punning: 2 (London)

Friend Valerio and his brother have set up a website dedicated to Georges Brassens, translating his compositions into English.  I was asked to help check the English.

Yesterday, I noticed a Union Jack at the top of the page we were looking at, so I queried it, “What’s it doing up there?”  Valerio said it was to indicate that the English used in their translations is British English.  I pointed out that I’d spotted some American English conventions dotted around some of their pages (spelling, e.g.).

Valerio, being the sort of knowledge-thirsty person that he is, then did some research into the use of national flags to indicate the language used, and found that it’s actually problematic.  For example, which flag to use for countries that speak Spanish, or French, just to name two.  Some countries change their flags.  Flags can be a political symbol, nothing to do with language.  And so on.

My nephew is a designer, so I immediately thought of him, as he might think of using this short cut in his designs.  I messaged him and started off saying, “This might be useful information for you in your work, so I thought I’d flag it up.”  Then I realised I’d done an unconscious pun!

Unconscious punning: 1

An Italian ex-colleague, Francesca, is applying for an EU traineeship, and has asked me to go through her English for her.  

One of the agencies is European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, which is shortened to ECHO. 

In her cover letter, she listed the three agencies she’s apply to.  The above agency appeared on her list as: 

European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) (ECHO)

So she’s done an unconscious pun, haha: echoing ECHO!

Update 250121: She said that is how it appears on their web page, not done by her.  So, someone out there has a sense of humour!

Adopting other people's cultural practices (London, Taiwan, China)

In English, lots of swear words get changed (toned down) to make them less offensive/shocking, e.g., sugar/shoot for sh*t, and basket for bastard. 

The younger generation in Britain, since at least a decade ago, do not exercise such considerations, however, using the f-word liberally almost as a badge of honour. This gets picked up by non-English speakers (e.g., from Europe, working in the pub) who seem to think using the f-word as freely as the native-speakers makes them more native / less foreign.

A Taiwanese friend once told me in 1979 about a Taiwanese girl who’d gone to America for a brief period — on an English course, I think — and come back throwing shit and f**k around all the time. He said, “She thinks that this way she’s showing off her superiority* over her fellow Taiwanese. She doesn’t seem to realise that it’s actually showing up her stupidity in choosing to use such vulgar language, especially for a Chinese girl.”

This reminds me of something a student once told me in the late 80s or early 90s.  Western female tourists in the Guilin (SW China) area were walking around in colourful baggy shorts they’d bought in the open markets, leaving the locals, especially the old ladies, tittering.  Those comfortable baggy shorts were the Chinese equivalent of the Western boxer shorts (i.e., underwear).

*It wasn’t easy in those days for people from Taiwan to go abroad.

(London 2012–present; Taiwan 1979s; China, 1980s/1990s)

Unergonomic communications

The mobile phone, with its ability to instantly dispatch messages, just seems to cultivate a most inefficient way of communicating.  Inefficient because it entails a number of to-and-fro exchanges instead of just two (one from the sender, one back from the recipient).

Here’s an example.

A text arrives: “Are you free on Friday?” 

Free for what, at what time, for how long, and where?  

Drink tea or run through a PhD thesis?

Morning, afternoon, evening?  Early morning, late morning, early afternoon, late afternoon, etc? 

5 minutes or 5 hours? 

Meet downtown or the other side of London?

I then have to send a text back, asking for these details.

The other party then has to text back giving me the details.

I then have to text back saying yes or no.

If the other person had included all the details in their first text, I’d just need to text back with yes or no.  End of communication, one text each way, instead of back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Drives me mad.

Viewing exhibits (London)

Radio 4’s consumer programme today is a phone-in, inviting people to say what they miss during the lockdown.

One caller said he missed going to exhibitions, exchanging off-the-cuff comments about the displays with the people (strangers) around him.  He described one occasion at the Royal Academy, standing in front of a fabulous painting of a feast.  The chap next to him said how well painted it was.  He said in reply, “It is well painted, but the people don’t look like they’re enjoying themselves.”

This reminds me of the time when I was at the Serpentine Gallery (in Hyde Park), looking at the photographs on display.  One was a black and white photo, captioned Grand Union Canal.  The “grand” canal looked more like a deep ditch at this unidentified stretch.  The opposite bank of the canal was lined with about 30 sheep, all staring at the photographer.  A man in his 50s came up from behind me, took one look at the photo and said, “Oh look, there’s Maggie’s cabinet!” 

[Maggie = Margaret Thatcher]

(London, 1985)

Groupthink (London)

BBC Radio 4’s programme on Groupthink calls to mind something that happened in the 80s when I was temping at SBTC (Sino-British Trade Council), now CBBC (China-Britain Business Council).  

SBTC was a quango (quasi NGO) helping British companies enter the Chinese market.  They organised outward missions (British delegations going out to China) and inward missions (Chinese delegations coming over to Britain), among other things.

One day, I was given the task of going to the airport to meet a delegation of 14 at the airport, taking them to their hotel and settling them in.

At the hotel, they had to do registration and be assigned rooms.  I sat with them in the foyer, helping them with the form-filling, as they didn’t know any English.  (This being the mid-80s, the Chinese were still fairly inexperienced when it came to dealing with the outside world.)

As this process was going to take a while, I thought I’d let them know where the toilets were, in case they needed to go.  I asked the ones nearest to me, “Does anyone need to go to the toilet?  They are in the basement — the stairs to the basement are there.”  One of them looked interested, but asked his colleagues first, each one in turn, “Do you want to go?”  Every one of them said no — the chap then said to me, “In that case, I’m not going.”

After a few more minutes, one of them had to go, “Where did you say the toilets are?”  I pointed at the stairs to the basement.  He got up and started walking towards the stairs.  One of his group then said, “I’m going too, then,” and followed him.  A third one got up, “In that case, I’m going as well.”  They then made their way to the basement in a bunch of six or seven.

These men were in their 20s and 30s!

(London, 1985)

Sabotage (UK)

I was told this story by one of the students involved.  

A lecturer of Chinese was writing a book about China. 

When the galley proofs arrived, he was too lazy to go through them himself, so he just handed out x pages per person in class and asked the students to proofread them. 

They resented this but couldn’t refuse to do it, so they came up with a compromise: sabotage. 

The student who told me the story said an old Chinese painting/illustration depicting a loom had come back from the printers with the Chinese characters mirror-imaged. The student proofreader let it go back to the printers as it was. 

I had a copy of the published book at the time, so I checked.  Yep, mirror-imaged.

(UK, 1980s)

Thinking outside the box: 03 (London)

 

I was approached by a subtitling company one day to translate into Chinese the narration of an in-house video series made by an international company for their employees.

.

Thinking ahead, I said, “I can do the translation and deliver it as hard copy, but how are you going to get it electronically onto the video screen as subtitles, to flash on and off at the right places?”  The subtitling company had the software for digitally generating the European language subtitles, but this was 1989 in the West.

“You have a point there,” they said.

That was when my mother’s experience of being called out of the cinema in the middle of a film came to mind.  (See Thinking outside the box: 02)

I suggested that the subtitling company do a dry run first with a few subtitles — link up three machines:

Machine 1 plays the video.

Machine 2 is a camera trained on my print-outs (placed on the table by hand, sheet by sheet from shot to shot), with the printed line of Chinese text positioned at the right height from the bottom of the screen, where subtitles normally sit.  

The images from Machines 1 and 2 are fed into Machine 3, which records the final version (the video with the subtitles overlapping the picture).

On my part, I had my own dry run to do for their dry run:  produce each subtitle in terms of different font sizes (to see how it’d show up on the screen — too big, too small or just right), and in terms of positioning at the bottom of the A4 sheet of paper (too high, too low or just right).  All these different versions were then handed over to the subtitling company to try out for the digital recording.

My idea worked!

Ironical that, for Chinese, we should’ve had to resort to a 1960s crude improvisation for a video series that had its European language subtitles produced and recorded digitally.

(London, 1989)

Thinking outside the box: 02 (Singapore)

With reference to Thinking outside the box: 01, I think I might’ve got inspiration from what happened in my childhood when my mother had to be called out to a childbirth.  She was a private midwife.

Babies don’t make appointments for arriving in this world, so my mother would get called out at all hours: in the middle of the night; while she was visiting another patient for post-natal care; and while she was in the cinema.

One night, I was watching a film with her when at the bottom of the screen, just above the subtitles (for a British or American film), appeared an extra improvised subtitle:  “Madam xx, please go home”.

All credit goes to the man handling the reels in the back room of the cinema.  

The desperate husband must’ve gone to my house, was told my mother was at Paramount Cinema, got there, but then how to get hold of my mother without stopping the film altogether, bringing on the lights, and making a public announcement on stage?  Of course they could’ve done that, if it was really necessary.  The reel-operator wrote his message on a strip of celluloid, and inserted it at the bottom of the machine.  Genius!

(Singapore, 1960s) 

Basil the tailless cat (London)

The Highwood Road house had a garden at the back.  I’d get home from work, change straight out of my outdoor clothes into old gardening gear, and go and do some weeding in the garden until it got dark.

After the first day, a stocky black and white cat with a docked tail (or he was a Manx cat) would come and join me in my weeding, staying around me throughout, sitting somewhere close by.  Housemate Sheila later told me he was next door’s cat Basil — she’d heard them calling him.

The window of my ground- to first-floor half-landing rear bedroom overlooked the roof of the ground floor kitchen extension.  I’d leave it open in the warm weather.  Basil found his way into my room one evening, by climbing onto the kitchen roof, then up onto my window sill.  He’d come every night and sleep in my bed.

The path from the kitchen door to the garden was lined with cherry trees.  The tree trunks were about 4 inches (10 cms) in diameter.

One day, I was walking down the garden path to go and do some weeding when I saw Basil sitting behind one of the cherry trees — on the other side of the tree from me.  His head was hidden by the tree trunk, but the rest of his body stuck out. 

I’d initially thought he was just sitting there, daydreaming and minding his own business, but when I got closer to the tree, Basil suddenly stepped out into the path, stood up on his hind legs, raised his upper legs into the air (like someone surrendering to the police or a robber), mouth wide open, in a silent “HA!  BOO!” gesture.  So, he was hiding behind the tree, lying in wait for me!  

He obviously didn’t realise that the tree trunk was too narrow to hide the rest of his body.  He must’ve thought, just because he couldn’t see me (with his head, and therefore eyes too, behind the tree trunk), that I couldn’t see him either.  Hahahahaha.

PS:  Having written this blog, it occurred to me that people in this country don’t tend to dock the tails of dogs and cats (unlike in Singapore during my childhood when it was done — for hygiene reasons, I was told), so Basil must be a Manx cat.  

Googling the traits of Manx cats produces “playful” for one of them!

From googling:

QUOTE 

The Manx is considered a social and gregarious cat, and very attached to humans, but also shy of strangers. The breed is said to be highly intelligent, playful, and in its behaviour reminiscent of dogs. For example, like some Maine Coons and a few other breeds, Manx cats often learn to fetch small thrown objects. They may also follow their owners about like puppies, and are believed to be better able to learn simple verbal commands than most cats.  …temperament …“quaint and interesting” … “docile, good-tempered and sociable”

UNQUOTE

(London, 1983)

The girl with the single car tyre (London)

One of my housemates in 1983 at No.1 Highwood Road was Carol (the owner of the goldfish in blog Carol’s goldfish).  At the time, she was painting toy soldiers for a company in Belgium.  They’d send her the soldiers, she’d paint on the uniforms and other details, then post them back.

One of the steps involved applying the paint using an airbrush — for an even finish, I suppose.  The aerosol cans for the air were very expensive, even more so for a freelance artist who didn’t have any other form of work at the time.

Being Carol, however, always very resourceful, she made her own air supplier.  She found a car tyre, and would take it to the petrol station on the main road behind our house to pump it up for free.  A car tyre also holds more air than an aerosol can, so she’d only need to re-fill the air once a week or so.

The men at the petrol station must’ve wondered what this girl was doing, coming along once a week with a single car tyre — not four tyres, and no car — to pump it up.

(London, 1983)

Making an emergency stop (Singapore)

One day, my driving instructor said, “Today, you’re going to learn to make an emergency stop.”  

He proceeded to explain to me the steps: 

1. He (and in the actual test, the driving tester) would indicate that I was to make an emergency stop by tapping the dashboard.
2. I was to lift my right foot off the accelerator pedal, and step simultaneously and hard on both the brake pedal (with my right foot) and the clutch pedal (with my left foot).
3. The car would come to an instant halt without killing the engine.  (If the engine dies in the test, that’s a fault.)

(Yes, it was a manual car.)

Off we went.

I was on the lookout for that tap on the dashboard.

At one point, I saw out of the corner of my left eye my instructor raising his hand.  I did Step 2 immediately.  The car came to a halt without the engine stalling.  I was very pleased with myself.

My instructor, however, had been pitched forward and hit his forehead on the dashboard, “What did you do that for?!?”

“I thought that was the signal for the emergency stop.”

“No, I was just trying to scratch my nose!”

We started again.

The next time I saw him raise his hand, I brought about another perfect emergency stop: engine didn’t stall.  My instructor, however, suffered another headlong lurch into the dashboard.  Yes, he was only trying to swat a fly away.

In the end, he was such a nervous wreck, not to mention bruised in various parts of his face, that he said, “OK, let’s do it this way.  If I want you to make an emergency stop, I’ll verbally warn you about 10 seconds before I actually tap the dashboard.”

We never practised any more emergency stops after that day.  I like to think that it was because every one of my efforts had been a perfect manoeuvre, but perhaps he just didn’t want to risk any further bruising to his face…

(Singapore, 1972)

Chinese saying: 拾金不昧 “pick-up gold not conceal” (Singapore)

I’ve been playing a Chinese crossword puzzle game on my phone, featuring proverbs (generally four characters) and lines from Chinese poetry (generally five to seven characters per line).

One of them is 拾金不昧 shí jīn bù mèi / “pick-up gold not conceal”.  

This saying is to teach people not to pocket something that someone else has dropped.  It is what I was taught as a child.

One day, after the school day was over, my classmate Helen Wong and I (aged 11) were walking down the quiet side street that led to the bus stop when we saw a wallet sitting on the pavement.  We picked it up, looked inside for clues to the owner’s details — none, but there were 20 dollars inside.  That was a lot of money in the 1960s.  Helen and I looked around, no sign of anyone.  We thought we’d stand there and wait, in case he came back.  (As it was a wallet, it’d be a male owner, as no women in those days in Singapore used a wallet.)  After a while, nobody turned up.  Our 拾金不昧 upbringing had taught us not to pocket what was not ours, so after some discussion, we decided to put it back where we'd found it, so that the owner would find it if he came back to look for it.

After we were about 20 yards away, we turned back and saw another girl from our school picking it up and pocketing it.

(Singapore, 1965)