Monday 15 March 2021

The brain works in wondrous ways: 06 (Spontaneous recollection) (Singapore)

When I returned to Singapore after two years away working in Taiwan, three Singaporean friends arranged a steamboat(1) dinner out.  As it’s not a Western dining style and also benefits from having more people, I invited along Dave, a Scottish engineer who worked for one of Conoco Taiwan’s oilfield service companies.


After the meal, Dave suggested we go to the piano bar of one of the big hotels for a drink.  It was there that Dave’s fellow-Scot housemate Dougie turned up with his Singaporean (Chinese) girlfriend, so Dave invited him to join us.


A bit of background here: in the Singapore of the 60s and 70s, white men were trophy boyfriend material, so any local girl with a white man (long term relationship or otherwise) would strut around looking like a cat that’s got the double cream.


Just before Dougie and his female companion appeared on the scene, I was showing my three Singaporean friends the puzzle ring(2) I’d been given in Taiwan.  We were all having fun, laughing as they each tried to put it back together without success.  


Dougie’s woman gave us a disgusted look, and said, “Stupid!”


I told my friends and all three of them bristled.


The pianist then started to play the tune for Oh Danny Boy.


Dougie’s bird, trying to win brownie points with the two Scottish men, said, “Ah!  A Scottish tune.”


I retorted, without thinking, “No, it’s not.  It’s from Londonderry.”  


Then, my brain thought, “Where did that information come from?!?”  


Obviously from my primary and secondary convent school days, when we’d sing all sorts of Western songs (e.g., English, Irish, Scottish, American, Australian) in addition to those from our region (S.E.Asia and the Far East).  


I must’ve remembered “Londonderry Air” from those days then.


(1) Steamboat is what we call it in S.E.Asia.  Other regions call it hotpot (火锅 huǒguō / “fire cooking-pot”).  The Japanese call it shabu shabu.  It’s the Oriental version of Swiss fondue, but the ingredients are thinly sliced meat, seafood and vegetables, which are dunked into a boiling broth. 


(2) Puzzle rings are multiple rings interconnected in various ways which fall apart once removed from the finger.  Said to have originated in the Crusades, given to the wife by the husband going off to war.  The only reason the woman would take off the ring would be to hide the fact that she was married — when dallying with another man. 

Thursday 4 March 2021

Chinese family tree (London)

I once had a student who’d married a Malaysian Chinese woman.  

Came up to me after a few weeks into term, said he was going off to Malaysia with her to spend Xmas with her family, could I do him a Chinese family tree chart so that he’d know what to call each one of her relatives.

I went home, got out an A4 sheet, starting in the middle with his wife, going (i) upwards for her parents, and (ii) sideways for her siblings.  

On her parents’ line, I went (i) upwards for their parents (the wife’s grandparents), and (ii) outwards for their siblings (uncles and aunts to his wife) and spouses and children (cousins to my student’s wife).  

Ditto for her siblings’ line: spouses and children (nephews and nieces to his wife). 

Each person has his/her own specific and individual label, pinpointing him/her precisely on the family tree: male, female, related on the father’s or the mother’s side, senior or junior in status.

I soon ran out of paper, and had to get another A4 sheet.  This went on until I ended up with SIX sheets.

When I presented it to him, six sheets of paper taped together, unfolding it like a map of the world or something, he took one horrified look at it, and said, “I don’t think I’ll bother!”

(London, 1986)

Spontaneous fun with words: 06 (London/Paris)

Just done a lesson with my student Hélène in Paris.

One of the sentences for translating into Chinese is a doctor telling the patient his heart and blood pressure are normal.

The Chinese word for “heart” is xīn.  

If it refers to “heart” the organ, one has to add the generic zàng / “internal organ”: 心脏 xīnzàng / “heart internal-organ”.  

This is because it is also used in an abstract way.  For example, 

  1. to think a thought to oneself (not articulated aloud), one says: 我心里想 wǒ xīn lǐ xiǎng / “I heart inside think” = I inside my heart think;
  2. one says a kind-hearted person is 好心 hǎo xīn / “good heart”.

After I’d explained all this to my student, she said, without even realising she was doing a pun, “I’ll have to go and learn it by heart.”  Inspired word play!


(London/Paris, 2021)

Wednesday 3 March 2021

Another old lady with a heavy shopping trolley (London)

Further to my blog Playing the old cardI’d just finished teaching my French student in Notting Hill and was on the bus to Westbourne Grove Tube station.

As I was about to get off the bus, I saw that there was an old lady (in her late 70s, I’d say, if not older) behind me with a shopping trolley, also wanting to get off.  


I did my usual thing: got off, turned round, offered her my hand for support, then took hold of her shopping trolley.  It was VERY heavy.


As we walked away from the bus stop, I commented on the weight of it, just for small talk socialising.  (Yes, it is a sign of getting old when you strike up a conversation readily with strangers!)


She said, in a Slavic accent, “Oh, it’s all bottles of vodka!”  


She then said, in a conspiratorial tone of voice, “You know the xx supermarket on Queensway?  Well, it offers a discount on vodka on Friday evenings between 6pm and 10pm.  Go and check it out!  You can save a lot of money!”


I wonder what I might find with the next old lady I help to lift her shopping trolley off the bus…


(London, 2018)


Playing the old card

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2021/02/playing-old-card-london.html


You know you’re old when… blog series:

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/12/you-know-youre-getting-old-when.html


https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2015/09/you-know-youre-getting-old-when-02.html


https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2015/10/you-know-youre-getting-old-when-3-london.html


https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2018/11/you-know-youre-getting-old-when-3-london.html


https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2020/02/you-know-youre-getting-old-when-4-london.html


https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2021/02/you-know-youre-getting-old-when-03.html

Tuesday 2 March 2021

Women and collar tags (UK)

I heard, on the radio in the late 70s / early 80s, a young man telling the interviewer he would wear his sweater with the collar tag deliberately hanging out.  


The reason?  “Women can never resist tucking it back in.”  


He continued:  If the woman is an old one or not particularly pretty, he’d say thank you and move on.  If it was a young or attractive one, he would chat her up.


(UK, 1970s/80s)