Do you have the Corona? (London)

 

I was waiting for a bus in Stamford Hill in north London when I was seized by a sneezing fit.

    I’m allergic to almost everything under the sun, except (thankfully) dogs and cats.  It is mid-April now, so the pollens are out (flower pollen now, later tree and grass).

   There was just one other person at the bus stop: a man in his 40s (I think), in side ringlets and a big furry hat.  He asked me, “Do you have the Corona?”  (Yes, those were his very words.)

    Apart from the fact that he ought to know it’s the pollen season, did he actually think I’d be physically well enough to be running around if I had Covid, never mind so irresponsible?

    I was so taken aback I could only say it was the chill in the air, forgetting even the hay fever bit.  (My brain is very slow when it comes to potential confrontation, unless it’s friendly repartee.)

    When he got on the bus after me, the man stayed by the driver, close to the front door, after I’d moved right inside.

    In hindsight, I should’ve replied, “Yes!”, just to see his reaction. 

(London, 2025)

How to cope with the tropical heat and humidity (Singapore)

 

Singapore might have changed a lot from what it was during my childhood days, but there are still lots of interesting places to visit and things to see (not to mention food to eat!), though not necessarily all preserved to how they used to be when I was little.

    The heat and humidity are a huge deterrent, though, making it very daunting to step outside into the giant hot pool called the outdoors.

    A British geologist described his first arrival in Singapore in 1969 or 1970 to work there:  “When the doors of the plane opened to let us walk down the airstairs, I felt like I was hit by a sheet glass of warm water.”  Such was the impact of the humidity on an Englishman out in the tropics for the first time.

    Having a shower is no solution.  I’d start to perspire even as I’m stepping out of the bathroom right after the shower.

    My second sister used to have at least three showers a day, if it was a working day:  once in the morning before she left for work; once late afternoon / early evening when she got back from work; and then again, just before going to bed.  Five at the weekend if she was home all day.

    On a number of earlier visits home, I was spending a lot of my time indoors, either lying under the ceiling fan, with a glass of ice cubes to munch on, or, worse, just dozing off for most of the day.

    During one of the visits, I decided that it was silly to be spending hundreds of pounds (more now, post-Covid and post-Ukraine War) flying out there, only to stay indoors watching TV or sleeping.  I could read and nap in London for nothing.

    So, I went for the half-empty-or-half-full attitude:  instead of fearing the heat and the humidity, just go out there, sweat off all the fat, so that there’s more room for eating all the delicious food that Singapore offers (and less worry about putting on weight).

 

    A bit like taking all the suffering on the treadmill in the gym.  It’s attitude that helps you put up with the pain.

    Yes, it worked!  I was less hesitant about venturing out after that.

(Singapore)

The unconscious state (UK, Kuwait)

Just heard a BBC World Service programme about some serious Covid patients (and their doctors, nurses, and chaplain) up in Leeds, Yorkshire, northern England.

The doctor interviewed said they still spoke to the comatose patients as if they could hear them.  One of the family members would even read out recipes for want of something to say, just so that the patient could hear their voice.

I have heard quite a few stories about people who are in an unconscious state being able to hear.

A football-mad boy started to respond when the family played him some football match commentary.

When Michael Rosen* caught Covid and was in a 40-day induced coma, one of the nurses one day mentioned to him (as part of the treatment) the name of the football team that was the main local rival of the team Rosen supports.  The nurse reported Rosen rolling over in his bed and keeping his back to her (presumably in disgust or protest).

When I was interpreting in Kuwait in May 1986, the six of us interpreters came back to our hotel from a half-day tour of Kuwait City, and were walking up the main staircase when one of the team twisted her ankle on the stairs, and fainted from the pain.

She was carried up the rest of the stairs and placed on a sofa in the foyer.  I knelt down beside her, held her hand, stroked it and said soothingly, “It’s all right, Mary [not her real name], it’s all right, everything’s all right, everything’s all right, don’t worry, don’t worry.”  She opened her eyes at that point.

Later, when she got back from the hospital, she told me that when she was in the unconscious state, she felt she was falling down a very long and dark shaft.  She said she felt quite frightened as she was falling down, down, down.  Then she heard a voice saying, “It’s all right, Mary, it’s all right, everything’s all right, everything’s all right, don’t worry, don’t worry.”  She suddenly thought, “I know that voice!  It’s xx!!” and immediately calmed down.  That was when she then woke up, to find me holding her hand, stroking it, and soothing her with those words.

*Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is a British children's author and poet who has written 140 books. He served as Children's Laureate from 2007 to 2009, and has also been a TV presenter and political columnist.

Linguistic approximation (Singapore)

A Singaporean who’d been educated in a Chinese stream school once wrote in her letter, “Friendly speaking, I don’t…”  (She’d meant "frankly speaking".)

This sort of approximation is very common, and not just among the Chinese either.  I’ve heard “Kings Cross” (the station in London) consistently being expressed as “King Cross” — mostly by Spanish speakers from South America, but also by Eastern Europeans.

When I was a child, people would say, when directing a driver to reverse, “Go stun go stun!”  I later realised it was meant to be “go astern”.  

When you wowed people with, say, a new hairdo, they’d make an utterance that I used to think was Chinese because it was used in a conversation conducted in dialect.  I later found out that it was “I say man”*. 

So, lots of borrowings from British colonial days that are not quite there — just a rough reproduction of the sounds that they’d heard without completely understanding the original words.  A sort of Chinese Whispers.

(Singapore, 1950s–1970s)

PS:  Another one is my second older sister (the rebellious one featured in my blog How to dent male chauvinistic behaviour), who consistently writes “Covic”.  A Turkish friend in London sends messages referring to Covit — not sure if the mistake is hers or that of the people originating the messages she forwards.

NB:  “I say man” (From googling)  An expression of disappointment, indignation, or disbelief. This is a hangover from British colonial times, when the British gentleman masters would exclaim “I say, man!” when the wrong wine was served with their meals, or other such crises.