Animal language (London)

On my morning school runs escorting two children to school, we walk through the grounds of Ally Pally (Alexander Palace) in north London.

Lots of people walk their dogs there.

On the way, I often come across earthworms that have found their way onto the tarmac paths, so I pick them up with sticks and throw them back onto the grassy area, so that they won’t get squashed underfoot.

One morning last week, a small dog suddenly stopped by me, and started to do a growly bark.  I wasn’t quite sure why it should be growling at me — surely it didn’t feel threatened by me?  

I asked, “What??  Why are you barking at me??”

The little dog growled again, and lowered the front half of its body, as if it was ready to bounce up and run off.

This was repeated a number of times.

Ah, Eureka!!  It wanted me to throw the sticks in my hands for it to go and fetch.

The only thing is: the sticks were the size of a toothpick for one of them and a chopstick for the other.  How the little dog could’ve thought they’d be candidates for Fetch is beyond me.

What I have learned from this episode , though, is:  after the event, it occurred to me that the dog’s growl on this occasion was from the back of the throat, not the usual frontal loud bark.  So, that growl was a request or invitation, “Come on, throw them, throw them, I want to go fetch!!”

(London, 2022)

Swan’s feet (Singapore)

During my undergraduate days at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), an English chap in the Japanese Section introduced me to the expression “swan’s feet”: to the observer, the swan is gliding smoothly and calmly on the water but under the surface the feet are paddling madly.  (I can’t find it under google, so he must’ve invented it.*)

I remember going to a job interview for the post of legal secretary at a lawyers’ firm (Boey, Ng and Wan, in Asia Insurance Building) in 1974. 

It was my first secretarial post after graduating from secretarial school, my previous job being as a telex operator at Conoco Western Pacific in Singapore (an American oil company, now ConocoPhillips).

I’d driven there after my morning telex shift, got stuck in the traffic, arrived late, sweaty and stressed out and anxious and nervous and flustered. 

Sat there opposite the three partners, wringing my hands under the table as they fired questions at me.  

There was also a test, of course:  dictation, shorthand, and typing out the dictated document in triplicate.

Anyway, I got the job. 

All three partners told me later how impressed they’d been with me — sitting there so calm and confident during the interview!! 

Classic swan’s feet, though I didn’t know the term at the time.

(Singapore, 1974)

*Thanks to Valerio for unearthing this:  

https://www.horebinternational.com/the-swan-metaphor/#:~:text=We%20don't%20see%20the,They%20are%20like%20white%20swans 

Selective hearing: 01 (Singapore)

When my mother repeatedly failed to get a response from my then two-year-old eldest sister, the family started to worry that it might be her hearing.

After checking her over, the doctor said, “There’s nothing wrong with her hearing.  She’s just stubborn!”

(Singapore, 1947)

Selective hearing: 02 (London)

Last Thursday, I was sitting with students Edouard and wife Monique during the pre-lesson lunch in the canteen.  

I’d say things to Edouard on my left, and get no response.  “OK, he’s in his 80s, so it’d be his hearing,” I concluded.  

When I chatted to Monique on my right, however, Edouard would join in, hearing everything perfectly.  

I said to him, “Your eavesdropping skills are excellent!  You can go and be a spy.”  

I added, “Next time I want to talk to you, I shall speak to Monique instead, then you’ll hear everything!”

(London, 2022)

Small world or what?!? (London)

When I was at university, I went to where Laura (a year above me) usually sat, to drag her off to tea (she studied all hours and never ate lunch, nibbling carrots instead at her library space).  An Oriental chap was sitting with her so he was invited to join us.  

He’d spoken to Laura because he was surprised that a white girl was reading a Chinese classic (紅樓夢 / Dream of The Red Chamber / Story of The Stone, published 1792).  

He turned out to be from Singapore, so the focus switched to him and me.  

He said he was actually on study leave to Sussex University but came to my library (School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS) because of its reputation for its collection of Japanese books.  So, he wasn’t even from SOAS, which is another small-world fact.  

He said he usually lived in Japan and had been there for a while.  Which university in Japan, I asked.  Tōhoku 東北, he said.  Ah, I said, my uncle went to Tōhoku in the 60s on a scholarship for a year — might he know him.  

I gave his name: Tay Mui Kwang.  Man said, “If Tay Mui Kwang is your uncle, then what is Chng Nguan Kim to you?”  I said, “Oh, Tay Mui Kwang is actually my mum’s cousin.  Chng Nguan Kim is my mother’s brother, therefore a more direct uncle.”  Man said, “Well, Chng Nguan Kim’s wife and my wife are sisters.”  I said, “Ah, so your wife is Aunty Hiang!  I’d heard about the two of you since a child: you and Aunty Hiang being perpetual students, going for one degree after another in Japan, staying on and on for years and years.”

Now, what are the odds of meeting someone I’d heard about since the late 50s, then meeting him in London in 1979, and through Laura too, therefore indirectly, therefore could’ve missed him if I’d not gone to get Laura to go for tea at that moment...  He wasn't even based at SOAS but Sussex, and only came up to London to use our library.

(London, 1979)

Thinking outside the box: 05 (London)

A student on the evening programme in the 90s had to go to Istanbul on business last minute so she was going to miss the exam.  Told me how much she wanted to do the exam as she’d put in so much work and didn’t want to wait until the re-sit in August — no tuition after end of school year in June so she’d get rusty.  Asked if I could find a solution. 

I suddenly came up with this idea: go and sit the exam at the British Embassy invigilated by a staff member. We’d just send the paper over, the embassy is a perfectly trustworthy authority for invigilating an exam. The only problem might be if she had a query about the contents but I could be on duty in London for that, i.e., be ready to take a phone call if she had one. So, all angles covered.

The embassy agreed to this, and it went smoothly.  And I was saved the hassle of having to set a re-sit just for one person.

(London, 1996?7?)

Why sit next to me?!?? (London)

 

Something that annoys me a bit is how people insist on sitting next to me on the bus, wherever I might be seated.  

The seat immediately behind the middle door is the most obvious: they want to be close to the door for getting off.

But I could be on the other side of the aisle (the far side from the door), and they’d still come and sit next to me, often making me move my bags of (food) shopping onto my lap.

Ditto if I were in the second seat behind the door.

Yesterday, I suddenly discovered the visual reason for this.

I was in the second seat behind the door, therefore not the most obvious one in terms of proximity to the door for disembarking.  A woman came and sat next to me in spite of there being only one woman in the seat behind the door, and only one man in the one the other side of the aisle.  

It was only then that I noticed how big the two Westerners are, taking up more than half the seat.  

It was something I’d only realised two months back, looking at a photo taken at a meal with my students.  I was shocked to see that, even standing up, I am barely taller than a student (from Malaysia, not a beefy Westerner) sitting down.  

Then, a classmate from RI (Raffles Institution) sent a compilation of photos from the last 40 years, and I saw that even against my Singaporean friends, I’m the smallest.

No wonder these people on the bus all want to sit with me: there’s a much bigger space next to this tiny Oriental.

(London)