Presumptuous: (dictionary definition) (of a person or their behaviour) failing to observe the limits of what is permitted or appropriate.
The series I’m watching at the moment has a scene where the two boys (late teens) arrive in Guangzhou (old rendition Canton). As they disembark from the train, some of their bags are grabbed by two men who are freelance porters looking to earn a bit of money carrying people’s bags for the short distance from the platform to the front entrance. When the boys challenged them, they reduced the original fee of 5 yuan to 3 yuan, then called the boys penny pinchers when the boys said no. This is set in the late 80s.
It reminds me of something that had happened on my second trip to China in 1997, with my brother and a then-student (a Westerner — let’s call her Mary).
It was a two-destination trip: first to 厦门 Xiamen (old rendition Amoy, famous for the soya sauce brand name) in 福建省 Fujian province, then to my father’s birthplace in the 潮州 Cháozhōu / Teochew dialect area of 广东省 Guangdong province, both in S.E. China.
My brother had been to my father’s village a number of times, and had asked me more than once if I’d like to go. He’d caught me in a nostalgic mood when he asked yet again in 1997, so I thought I’d give it a go, although I’d sworn in 1988 after my 37-day film shoot that I wouldn’t go back there ever again, nor have anything to do with the people or the culture.
After a few days in Xiamen, we took a long distance coach bound for 汕头 Shantou (old rendition Swatow), the nearest town in 广东省 Guangdong province for my father’s village. The coach driver had forgotten about our request to be dropped off at an earlier spot in the outskirts (where we were to be picked up by my brother’s contact), so Mary and I were left standing somewhere beyond the meeting point while my brother walked back to see if he could find his contact.
There we were, two women (one of whom was a Westerner) standing by a main road leading to Shantou, with luggage and other bags sitting at our feet. We could’ve been wanting a minibus into town, it’s true. All the minibuses heading that way would slow down and ask if we’d like to get on board, to which we shook our heads and said no.
One of them, however, actually came to a halt, in spite of our having declined. The conductor got off, grabbed two of our bags and started to get back on the bus.
Incidentally, he had picked out the two most expensive-looking bags: one was my brother’s leather attache case, the other was an airport duty free goods bag with a couple of bottles of whisky in it.
I grabbed his shirt from behind, shouting, “Hey, put those bags down!”
He held on to them, saying, “Oh, Miss, I’m only helping you to put them on the bus.”
I said, “But we’d said no, we didn’t want to go into town. Put those bags down, or else…” and at this point, I’d picked up a huge plastic bag with a big tin in it, swinging it, à la cowboy with a lasso, in the air above my head.
What he didn’t know was that the tin was filled with pastry called Kueh Kapit*, each shaped like a hollow cigar, therefore very light. The hollow cigar-shape pastries take up a lot of room, hence the size of the tin. It was this big tin in the huge plastic bag I was swinging in the air above my head, threatening to whack his head with it, that the bag-grabbing minibus conductor saw. He immediately put the two bags down, and they scooted off.
This story with the dramatic last bit had my family laughing for days after that.
(China, 1997)
PS: I’m normally a flight, rather than fight, person. Having been brought up to think that it’s unfeminine behaviour to fight in public, my brain freezes up when there’s any friction or potential confrontation. Even if I was in the right or being wrongly accused of something, I’m unable to react. I might come up with the right defence some five days, if not weeks, later, so I don’t know where I got the courage from on that particular day, or how I managed to react so quickly.
* (AI overview) In Singapore, a hollow, cigar-shaped pastry resembling a love letter is called Kuih Kapit. It's a thin, crispy crepe-like biscuit, often enjoyed during Chinese New Year. The name "love letter" comes from its historical use in conveying affectionate messages between lovers. The pastry is made by pouring batter onto a hot, patterned mold and then rolled into a cylinder while still warm.
