Half full or half empty: 03 (Dealing with news of a death)

I've just heard about the deaths of two people I didn't know personally but known to the bringer of the news.

    Both were not young, but a loss is a loss, whatever the age of the departed.

    My consolation to the bereaved has always been:  "It's always hard on the survivor, but I always try and tell myself that it's kinder on the deceased, as s/he is no longer suffering.  This makes it easier to accept."

    I've used this half full or half empty perspective on two occasions to help me through a mega depression.

    One was the unexpected death of a Taiwanese friend from a traffic accident.  He had been a (platonic) soulmate, and I'd just spent a month in the summer with him in Taiwan.

    I asked British Monomarks (the telex agency where I was working part-time to support myself through my first degree) to give me all the spare hours they could find.  This way, I'd come home totally whacked, down a big glass of brandy and fall asleep, getting up the next day to another full shift.  Day in, day out.

    When there were no more hours to be had at Monomarks, I'd sit on the floor against the radiator in the basement flat, and grieve.  My West Hampstead flat was a short distance from Hampstead Heath, where I could go and take a long walk, but I didn't want to do anything, I just wanted to sink in my depressed state.

    One day, a thought suddenly struck me:  the person who had died wasn't suffering anymore, so I was not feeling sad for him but for myself.  I had lost a good friend, so I was feeling sad for my loss.  I was therefore being selfish.  That thought brought me out of my debilitating depression.

(London, 1979)

Chinese sayings: 27 (紛至沓來 / 纷至沓来)

紛至沓來 / 纷至沓来

fēn zhì tà lái

“numerous arrive numerous come”

to come thick and fast

The university college I was working at had appointed a new director.  (It shall remain unidentified for obvious reasons.)

He was a banker in his previous job, so the first thing on his new-broom-sweeps-clean list of chores was to try and save money, starting with proposing to shut down the Linguistics Department.

Huge waves of protests from within the school:  how can a school of languages be without a Linguistics Department??

I arrived one morning for work to find one of the porters, Ian, emerging from the telex room (which was on the other side of the corridor from the reception desk), hands full of reels of telex, shaking his head.  Asked what the matter was, he said, “The machine hasn’t stopped spewing out incoming telexes from universities all over since the director’s decision to close down the Linguistics Department.”

I asked, “What do they all say?”

He said, “Only what a prat he was.”

Another day, I arrived to find that I had to go round the building and get in through the side door (which I never knew existed before), as the driveway in front of the main entrance was being dug up.  I asked Ian what was happening there.  He said, “Oh, the director dropped a penny, and they’re looking for it.”  (It turned out that the chancellor of the college was visiting, so they were sprucing up the place a bit.)

(London, 1980s)

How many seats do you want? (Taiwan / London)

In 1976, the second year of my two-year stint with Conoco Taiwan, Pete the British geologist and I were going on a trip to Kaohsiung, in the south-west of Taiwan, for the weekend.  

We decided to fly as we only had two days, and not even full days at that.  China Airlines, the national carrier, told me they were fully booked.  

I approached Freddie Chen (now deceased), who was our deputy manager at Conoco Taiwan.  He was really the fixer for any bureaucratic requirements related to our oil rig, work boats and men, as all his ex-air force mates had gone to work for various government departments after the Vietnam War (where they’d fought alongside American troops—Taiwan being anti-communist, remember).  I would hear Freddie, whose office was next to mine, addressing them down the telephone line as “Brother Wang, this is Old Chen.  I need a favour.”

Freddie now took out a sheet of paper, asked me, “How many seats do you want?”, wrote something on it, put it into an envelope, and said, “Take this to the China Airlines main office on Nanjing East Road and hand it over at the main desk.”

I went along and did what Freddie said.  

The staff member took a look at the envelope and went away.  

When she came back, she said, “Which flights do you want there and back, and how many seats do you want?”  

So there were not only seats available after all, I even had a choice of the flights both ways!  

Well, Freddie had only written to the head of China Airlines, no less, or someone high enough anyway, presumably addressing him as “Brother XX”.

Fast forward to 1986 and London.  A student on the evening programme, Robin, told me after a lesson one night, when I asked what he’d be doing for Christmas, that he was in a right conundrum.  

His (British) then-wife was working for the British Council in Hong Kong, and they’d arranged to go on holiday in Thailand, meeting in Bangkok — he flying out from London, she from Hong Kong.  He was then going to fly on to Taiwan, where he was hoping to do some business deals.  So, apart from the fact that this was to be over the Christmas holiday — peak period for travel, this was also quite a bit of a juggling job in itself logistically.  And don’t forget, this was 1986, pre-online-booking days.

For some reason, Robin decided to make his life even more hairy by trying out different options (on the basis of price), which left him in the end with none because he didn’t make a decision soon enough on any one of them.  His then-wife, however, had already booked her flight to Bangkok.

I told Robin my 1976 Kaohsiung weekend story, and said I could try Freddie for him.  

The next day, I telexed (yes, that’s how long ago it was!) Freddie, explaining Robin’s dilemma, giving him the dates for Robin’s intended travel into and out of Bangkok and Taipei, and giving him Robin’s telex address as well so that Freddie could liaise with him directly, especially given the tight timing.

The following week when I went for the lesson, I asked Robin, “Well, have you heard from Freddie?”  

Robin’s answer: “Yes.  Freddie’s telex just said, ‘How many seats do you want?’”

So from “fully booked” to “how many seats do you want”, one can see that when airlines tell you they have no seats left, it may not actually be the case.  (Look out for another blog, to come, on this subject.)

(Taiwan, 1976; London, 1986)

Chinese frugality (London / China)

At SBTC (Sino-British Trade Council, now CBBC / China Britain Business Council; see also blog "Fog capital"), we’d get requests from the Chinese side to organise visits to British companies or factories.  

They’d give us details such as when they’d be arriving, staying for how long, what kind of companies/factories they’d like to visit, and we’d start compiling a list of likely candidates and find out if they'd like to host a Chinese delegation.  

Once an itinerary was drawn up, we’d get back to the Chinese to see if it’d suit them.

In those days, we used the telex (sending out a tape punched with holes representing the letters of the alphabet).

On this particular occasion, we couldn’t get through to the Chinese side, so we’d try again.  And again.  And again.  

As we got closer to their departure date, we decided to phone them, even though it was a lot more expensive.  

There was also a time difference of seven hours which was tricky, because it entailed one of us (and it had to be a Chinese-speaker) ringing them no later than 10am London time.

I was that appointed Chinese-speaker.  

When I finally got through to them, the first thing I asked was if their telex machine had broken down, for we had to get in touch with them a few more times about this imminent visit of theirs.  

They were surprised at the question, “No.  Our telex machine is in good working order.  There’s nothing wrong with it.”  

Then why were we unable to get through to them over the last few days?  

“Oh,” they said, “it’s because we switch off the machine when we’re not using it.”

(London / China, 1985)

Fog capital:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/08/fog-capital.html