A narrow escape (Taiwan)

When I got the job with Conoco Taiwan, my father asked around trying to find someone who could put me up in Taiwan — I was only* 21, so the family was a bit concerned about me having to fend for myself all alone in a foreign country.  (*By Oriental standards, in those days anyway, 21 is young, especially if it’s a single female.)  

He eventually found a distant relative who had a factory in Taiwan making suitcases and bags.  The arrangement turned out to be sharing a flat with his female employee and her brother, who also worked for him.  The distant relative said they were from the south and he was not paying them a lot of money, so the least he could do was to give them rent-free accommodation

My mother had warned me before I left that she thought the female employee was more than a mere member of staff, and that I should keep an eye out for trouble, because this distant relative was married.  A few months later, I got news from home that his father had found out about the affair so I might be accused of snitching on him.  In any case, the father might fly out to Taipei to have it out with the woman, so I should move out to avoid getting embroiled.

One of Conoco Taiwan’s three radio operators, Ken, said his friend had a spare room going in the family home as his younger sister had gone to America.  

I duly turned up one day after work, with our Accounting Assistant Peggy kindly tagging along to help, to inspect the room and meet the friend’s parents.  

The older brother and wife were also present, which I thought might’ve been a coincidence: that they were just on a routine visit.

As they were my colleague Ken’s friends, I couldn’t just ask to go straight upstairs to look at the room without the ritual small talk first.  So, there I was, sat in an armchair, with the five of them positioned opposite me on sofas and armchairs.

Questions were asked:  

“How long have you been in Taipei?”  

“What kind of work do you do?” 

“What kind of company is it?” 

“How old are you?” 

“Do you have any siblings?”

All very standard questions which Chinese people pose, often during the first meeting.  

It’s a cultural practice to establish the relative positions between the two parties, i.e., who’s more senior in age and professional / social status, so that they can address each other appropriately, especially when it comes to respect language (cf. French vous and tu).  

One doesn’t want to look silly using respect language on, say, a road sweeper if one was a managing director of a big company.

Throughout the questioning, the senior members of the family (i.e., except Ken’s friend, the younger son) would nod and smile at my answers approvingly, saying things like, “How clever and capable you are!”, “So young and you’ve already been sent abroad to work!”

All of this was to be expected, because such is the Chinese perspective:  a young female, aged 21, being accepted by an international oil company for a post abroad, must be very clever and, therefore, most admirable.  

What made me feel that all was not what it seemed on the surface, however, was the married brother laughing heartily and interjecting with, 

“You’re from Singapore, which is a long way away, yet here we are meeting each other.  Hahahahaha!  Such is fate!  Hahahahaha!  有緣千里來相會 / 有缘千里来相会 / yǒu yuán qiān lǐ lái xiāng huì!”  

He kept repeating this phrase whilst laughing and looking meaningfully at his younger brother.

有緣千里來相會 / 有缘千里来相会 / yǒu yuán qiān lǐ lái xiāng huì is a common Chinese saying, which sort of translates as: “Fate has brought [the two parties] together, in spite of the distance.”  

It can be for describing two parties hitting it off in a platonic relationship, but is also/more often used to describe two people getting together in a romantic relationship.

The other half is:

无缘对面不相逢

wú yuán duì miàn bù xiāng féng

"not-have fate to-face face not mutual meet"

If the two parties are not destined to be together, then even if they're facing each other, they still won't come across each other

Once the penny dropped, I decided to bring the interview to a close, and asked to see the room (which was just like a store room, not made up for a lodger to move in at all), then made some excuse (that it was getting late) and took my leave.  

On the way out, Peggy said, “They were not looking for a lodger!  They were looking for a daughter-in-law!  You had a narrow escape there!”

(Taiwan, 1975)

Chinese men with curly hair (Singapore / China)

I grew up hearing grown-ups refer to Chinese men with curly hair as “untrustworthy”.  

This is presumably because: 

(i) Chinese hair is biologically straight by default, so anything else would be a deliberate decision on the owner’s part, 

and 

(ii) only women are allowed the vanity of having their hair permed, thus making men who dare to flout the conventions and have the audacity to perm their hair too shady.

We even have a word for it in my dialect (潮州 Cháozhōu / Teochew):  “kek mor” (曲毛 / “curly hair”).  “Kek mor” applied to any Chinese man would mean:  “Doesn't he look ridiculous?!?”, “And he thinks he looks so handsome!”, “He’s up to no good / too vain to be trusted”.

One of the developments in a mainland Chinese TV drama serial, aired in 2010 but set in 1985, features the high-school daughter being befriended by a group of three youths.  They’d be what is now called NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) in Britain, hanging around all day long.  The synopsis calls them 痞子 (pǐzi / ruffian, lout).

Sure enough, the leader of the gang sports a mop of curly hair!

PS:  I’ve been using the synopsis of the 36 episodes of the TV serial as teaching material.  When I mentioned this “curly hair = shady, dodgy” stereotyping to my Malaysian Chinese student, who is some 30 years younger than I, she confirmed that it is still a prevalent practice, saying Singapore TV dramas often, if not always, depict a slippery character by giving him curly hair.

Update 180219:  My nephew in Singapore confirms that even to this day (the 21st century), they are still “perceived as baddies and/or [men with] BAD TASTE.  And not just in [the] Singapore context.  The guys with curly hair on Korean dramas are usually portrayed as baddies or brainless twerps or baddies that are brainless.”

(Singapore, 1960s and 21st century; China, 1985 and 2010)

See also:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-driving-instructor-singapore.html 

China’s urban neighbourhood committees (China)

Mainland China has urban Neighbourhood Committees (居委会 jūwěihuì / residents committee = 居民委员会 jūmín wěiyuánhuì = 社区居民委员会 shèqū jūmín wěiyuánhuì).

They’re generally made up of retired men and women, which is an excellent way of tapping into their life experience and letting them feel still useful to society, not to mention keeping them mentally and physically fit.

Some of the most common duties performed by them are traffic directing on a small scale (e.g., helping children cross the road — we call them “lollipop ladies / men” in Britain, now supposed to be “school patrol crossing officers” which hasn’t quite caught on, apparently, according to google).

An evening student of mine, Englishman Ben, was in Shanghai on a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) course.  He didn’t know any Chinese at the time.

One day, the bus was taking ages to come, so he decided to get an ice lolly.  

He’d just finished the ice lolly when the bus arrived.  He couldn’t see any rubbish bins around, so, not wishing to miss the bus after having waited such a long time, he placed the stick at the base of a tree, thinking it was biodegradable, therefore would rot down in time.

As soon as he turned round to board the bus, he heard a shout, emanating from an old lady a few feet away.  Ben didn’t need to know any Chinese to get the message as she was pointing at him, then at the ice lolly stick under the tree, then back at him again.  

He thought, “Well, I’m getting on the bus anyway — I'm not going to let it go after having waited for so long for it,” and embarked.  

The old lady followed him up the bus, still berating him loudly, pointing out of the window at the base of the tree, then back at him.  All eyes on the bus were focused on him. 

Ben decided to move further along the bus to get away from her, but she, too, moved down the bus, pursuing him relentlessly with her angry volley.  

Eventually, Ben had to get off the bus after just one stop to get away from the very public naming and shaming.

(China, late 1980s)

It’s the principle of it, not the money (London)

It always gets my goat, and I begrudge them even one penny, if I think someone is out to cheat me, or if they try to imply by their demeanour that I am being mean or petty.  One must certainly not encourage such outrageous behaviour from a restaurant or shop, because you’re supporting their business, after all, with your patronage.

A few years ago, I was waiting at a bus stop in my neighbourhood when I spotted a new Chinese supermarket next to it.  Went in to check it out, as it’d be good to try and buy local.  Got a packet of Malaysian-produced groundnuts, with a marked up price of 99p.  Paid with a pound coin, but the shop assistant didn’t make a move to get the change.  Said to her, “I thought it says 99p on the shelf?”  She said with a sneer, “It’s only one penny[’s change].”  I gave the packet back to her, asked for my money back, and never went there again.  A few months later, I saw that they’d closed down, and thought with Schadenfreude glee, “Ha!  Serves you right.”

There’s a shop on Harrow Road selling Oriental and Filipino food (rice, noodles, sauces, snacks), run by Pakistanis.  They are always polite and friendly, and I try to shop there whenever I’m in the neighbourhood, although it's a long way to lug all the stuff home.

One day, I was looking at some (uncooked) poppadums on the shelf.  One of the staff walking past, a Pakistani young man, said to me, pointing at the top packet, “These are broken.  Take a fresh packet.”  Because of his attitude, I deliberately picked up the packet of broken poppadums, thanked him warmly, and said, “It’s OK, I don’t mind.  You need to sell them or you’ll lose money.”

(London, 2009)

Being threatened with a subpoena (London)

In my first two years in London, I lived in one of the bedsits on the first, second and third floors of a terraced house in Belsize Park.  The ground and basement floors made up another flat.

Towards the end of my two years there, the owner of an estate agent moved into the flat below with his family.

I then started to hear music emanating from the room next to our shared bathroom on the first floor.  One day, on my way to the bathroom, the door to that room was ajar: I could see that it was just a storage room kept by the landlord, who lived further down the road, full of spare furniture and bits and bobs, all thrown together.  Sitting among all this was a transistor radio, blaring out music.  I’d thought at the time that maybe the landlord had been working in there, repairing some furniture, and was just taking a break without bothering to switch the radio off.  However, after that day, whenever I went down to the bathroom, even in the middle of the night, I’d hear the radio still going — every single time.

One day, my landlord told me that the owner of the flat below tried to get him out on the grounds that he didn't live there.  (I think the chap downstairs owned the freehold to the whole house.)

Ah, I see, that was what the radio playing 24/7 was about:  my landlord was trying to make us tenants think he was actually living in that room.  I didn't like this sneakiness.

Not long after, I moved out to West Hampstead.  Because he had my new address (for forwarding my post), my ex-landlord turned up one night with his lawyer.  The lawyer explained the situation:  the case had gone to court, so they wanted me to be one of his witnesses — to say that he did indeed live on the premises.  I said I was sorry but I didn’t want to do that.  

I would've been more sympathetic had she not then tried to pressurise me by saying, “We can subpoena you, you know.  You will not be able to refuse then, if you were subpoena’d.”

Instead of making him lose face by saying I knew about his radio trick, I simply said, “It will not be to your advantage to do that.  I will have to tell the truth in court, so it will not be to your benefit to have me there as one of your witnesses.”  

She then had a little discussion with him in Greek, and they left immediately.

(London, 1977–1979)

Sanity-challenging conversations: 11 (London)

I was waiting at the Brent Cross bus terminus for the 189 bus when an old lady with an Irish accent (in her 70s; or early 80s?) sitting next to me asked, “Where does Finsbury Park go to?”  She had a big shopping bag of food bought at Sainsbury’s.

For a moment, I couldn’t process what she meant.  I said, “It doesn’t go anywhere.  It’s a place.”  Then, I saw that bus 210, going to Finsbury Park, had just pulled up, which must've been what prompted her question.  I said, “Oh, you mean where can one go from Finsbury Park?” as she must’ve been trying to establish if she could take bus 210.  “From Finsbury Park, you can go to Highbury, or to Stamford Hill.”  It was obviously not what she wanted, for she went off to ask someone else before I could give her more place names, entering into a long, gesticulating conversation with a young lady.

Bus 189 turned up, the old lady came back to ask the driver, “Do you go to Edgware Road?”  Driver said yes, so she boarded and sat in the seat by the door, facing the rest of the bus.  I got on after her, stopped by her seat, and said with a smile, “So, you’ve found your bus!” and sat in the seat the other side of the doorway, facing the front and facing her.

After taking a back route — down back streets, around housing estates — the bus got to Cricklewood, just before turning into Edgware Road, joining it about two-thirds of the way up Edgware Road.  

The old lady looked at me across the doorway and asked, “Should I get off here?”  

I said, “I don’t know where you’re going, so I can’t tell you.”  

I then got up and went over to her,  “Where do you want to go?”

Old Lady:  I want to go to Edgware Road.  I asked the driver, and he said this bus goes to Edgware Road.

Me:  But Edgware Road is a very long road.  Which bit of Edgware Road do you want to go?

OL:  I want to go to the end.

Me:  There are two ends.  Which end do you want to go to?

OL:  (getting cross and tetchy by now) END END!!

Me:  (still trying to be helpful)  This bus is heading for the Marble Arch end.

OL:  (still tetchy) Oh NO, I DON’T want to go to Marble Arch!

She got off when I did, but wandered off up the road before I could ask her any more questions to try and establish how I might help her get on the right bus.  

I had to cross the road to change to a bus going to the north end of Edgware Road to get something, so had no time to run after her.

Thinking back about it now, I think she might’ve been wanting to go to Kilburn, which is an Irish* area further down on Edgware Road, so bus 189 would’ve taken her there.  (*Remember the lady had an Irish accent, so perhaps she lived there.)

I also think now, from her behaviour and her communication style, that she was suffering from dementia.  How, though, did she manage to buy a whole bagful of food, when her brain was in such a confused state?

(London, 2019)

“Knife mouth, beancurd heart” (London)

There is a Chinese saying — 刀子嘴、豆腐心 dāozi zuǐ, dòufǔ xīn / “knife mouth, beancurd heart” — for describing someone who has a tongue as sharp as a knife, but is actually soft-hearted underneath.

One particular example comes to mind.

When I was working at the Baker Street branch of the pub chain, I used to pick up the small plastic food boxes that were thrown out, to take home, wash and re-use.  They contain pre-portioned-out quantities of, say, baked beans (for English breakfast), or mushy peas (for fish and chips), and are thrown out once the contents have gone into the dish.  

As an ecologically-minded person, I simply cannot bear to see this one-off usage of these plastic boxes, even though the financial cost isn’t mine to bear.

One of the kitchen hands — let’s call him Adam — was a fiery character.  He was loud, swore a lot and complained a lot about things, and I often witnessed heated exchanges between him and another kitchen hand.

Adam saw me picking up the boxes one day, and said, in a harsh tone of voice, as was his wont, “What do you want that SHIT for?!?”  Even though he meant it metaphorically, I still felt a bit offended — “rubbish” would’ve been acceptable to me.  I explained that I was trying to recycle the boxes as much as possible, to save the environment.  He said nothing.

After that, I missed out on a few months of my once-a-week Saturday shift because of a couple of broken fingers from a fall.  

When I did eventually return to work, the first thing Adam said to me was, “Where have you been?!?  I’ve been collecting the boxes for you!!”  He led me to the storage room at the back where there was a huge plastic (rubbish bin) bag of the used plastic food boxes.  

I was so touched.

(London, 2014 and 2015)