Staff lunch at the Chinese community centre where I’m teaching Mandarin and English.
Bobby the raconteur was telling story after story about being a civil servant in Hong Kong.
I said to the group (all from Hong Kong) that it should’ve been video’d as it was all so witty.
One of them said to me, “You seem to be able to understand all the profound Cantonese expressions he uses.”
I said, “Not really. I just know how to laugh at the right moments.”
(London, 2022)
Dementia lady has so far worn a dead-eyed down-in-the-mouth look. I’d thought when I first saw her some six months ago that she disliked me — gave me this dead-eyed down-in-the-mouth look when I smiled at her. I only found out later that she had dementia. Then the husband said she had lost strength in the left leg, which is why he asked me for a massage for her — not for her dementia.
Thursday, I gave her another massage: 5th leg massage and 3rd sciatic point massage. Hubby said her sleep has improved with my massages.
She even started to join in a bit of the karaoke singing, seeming to remember something.
When they walked past me as they were leaving, she actually raised a hand (slightly) and waved at me with a smile!!!
(London, 2022)
The two boys (aged 7 and 4.5) that I babysit now and then will take ages to finish their food. (Confession: I was a difficult eater myself as a child — taking ages over half a bowl of rice.)
They also often say the portions are too big and they can’t finish it all.
One day, I decided to try a new trick. With a spoon, I drew a line down the middle of the lasagne they were having for dinner that evening, and said, “You eat this half, I’ll help you with the other half if you can’t eat it, OK?” Readily and eagerly accepted, and they started eating.
Half way through the meal, their spoon crossed the line a bit into the other half. I said, “Oh! Your spoon’s touched that half now, so you’ll have to eat it, since I won’t.”
(London, 2022)
The Chinese, especially the southerners in my own experience, often come across as abrupt (or worse: rude and aggressive). A then-colleague from Beijing said to me back in the 90s: "Southerners have a very abrupt manner of speaking." This is a Chinese talking about his fellow Chinese.
I put it down to the Chinese language, especially the southern dialects, having harsher sounds (and intonations for Cantonese), which is jarring to Westerns. As with accents being transferred to a foreign language (e.g., Spaniards speaking English with a Spanish accent), so this harshness gets carried over to English spoken by a Chinese person, resulting in the speaker sounding very abrupt.
The Chinese are also not always immediately friendly. They seem to work to two extremes: cold and remote (even coming across as unfriendly and suspicious) when they don’t know you, but very warm and welcoming when they do, even if only indirectly (i.e., they only know a friend/relative of yours). This is my generalisation from my own personal experience.
The Chinese community centre where I teach Mandarin and English has a group of ladies from Hong Kong who play cards in the morning at one of the lunch tables. One day, I approached the table as my student Sui was sitting there. The three ladies looked up. So fierce and unwelcoming was the look on their faces that I immediately backed off and went to another table.
I have encountered friendly Oriental-looking people, however — on buses, at bus stops. They make eye contact, smile (which causes me to do a double take), and even say hello.
Soon, I discovered what they are: either Filipinos (I look like one myself, or an American Indian when in Peru), who are usually friendly, or Christians trying to get me to go to their church, or follow their branch of Christianity.
(London)
The ping pong players at the Chinese community centre bring in a lot of food to share: fruit, biscuits, cake. The kitchen downstairs gives them the unfinished soup from lunch.
One day, one of the players was eating a banana when I said, “Don’t throw the skin away, give it to me.”
He asked why, so I told him the story about the time I asked my full-time BA students at the university for their banana skin. Up shot their eyebrows: "Why do you want the skin?" I said: “The university pays me too little.”
Since then, it’s become a joke between me and this particular ping pong player: he gets to eat the flesh, I get the skin. He’d wish me each time he gave me his skin: “Enjoy your dinner!”
(London, 2008 & 2022)
The lunch routine at the Chinese community centre canteen where I teach Mandarin and English is: when done with eating, take the plate to the trolley down one side of the canteen, scrape off uneaten scraps into the bin, then place the cutlery in one plastic basin and the crockery in the other.
One day, a young man — in his late 20s / early 30s(??) from Hong Kong whom I’d never seen before — was the last to finish his meal. He took the whole lot to the kitchen. I told him that plates were to be taken to the trolley, not straight to the kitchen. He gave me a look of disdain, and went back to his table.
Once my teaching table was set up on the other side of the canteen, he realised I was a teacher. Walking past my table when leaving the canteen, he said a very respectful, “See you, Teacher!” in Cantonese.
(London, 2022)
See also: https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2012/03/old-man-in-chinatown-london-uk.html
The middle three of the five children in my family were sent off to live with Grandma on her coconut plantation as soon as they were born, as there wasn’t enough space at my mother’s rented accommodation (which was just a room).
Grandma’s plantation, out east not far from Changi International Airport, had electricity from the village generator only between sundown and 11pm, so the house had no fridge. The older of my mother’s two brothers, who lived with my grandma as he was the older son, was also very strict about unhealthy eating, so no chocolate and no Coca Cola.
Every now and then, my third sister would come to stay in my mother’s bungalow house in suburban Singapore.
She’d go straight to the fridge the moment she arrived, fill a tall glass with ice cubes and coke, then go and sit on the floor of the front verandah against a wall.
To eke out the enjoyment, she wouldn’t drink it, not even in sips. She’d dip the long-handled spoon into the ice cold coke, lift it to her mouth, and lick the spoon for the flavour on her tongue. There she’d sit for ages, stretching out the enjoyment of a chilled soft drink this way.
I’ve since coined the phrase “Licking the spoon” for enjoyable things in my life. If I’m having fun at a party but have to go to work the next day, I’d say, “I want to lick the spoon. I can catch up on sleep another day.”
(Singapore, 1960s)
