My first professional-interpreter breakfast with the mainland Chinese delegation of four engineers gave me my first glimpse into how a mother of quadruplets might feel (but on a daily basis for the mother).
We were bivouacked at a posh hotel, a converted old manor house set in lush grounds with oak trees and grazing cows. Very English.
The breakfast table setting matched the surroundings: white tablecloth, silver cutlery, silverware sugar bowl.
I was seated at the head of the table, with two engineers on each side of me.
Instead of a simple request "please pass the sugar" which is the standard British behaviour, my charges would stand up and help themselves to the sugar bowl (for their hot milk -- the Chinese don't go for cold drinks) at the far end of the table. They'd stand up, teaspoon in hand, reach across to the bowl, scoop up a spoonful of sugar, and end up leaving a trail of spilt sugar on the way back.
At the end of the meal, the white table cloth looked like WW3 had just been fought on it. Cringe.
(Accrington, Lancashire, Northern England, 1980)
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