Peruvian ways (Peru)

February 2015:  Unearthed my journal from my first trip to Peru in June 1986, and these excerpts (in chronological order of occurrence as we travelled from Lima up to Cuzco) just make me chuckle:

Excerpt 01:  Pisco.  We packed and bought tickets for the 3.15pm [long distance Pisco-to-Ica bus].  The wall chart at the bus terminus says 3pm and 3.30pm, and then the bus left at 2.40pm!  I suppose this is how you filter out overcrowding — by wrong-footing the passengers with crazy, shifting time-keeping!

[NB: Being a long distance bus service, they wouldn’t have had a bus leaving at 3pm, one at 3.15pm, one at 3.30pm, which is too frequent at 15-minute intervals, so it must've been purely the Peruvian fluid time-keeping. ed.]

Excerpt 02:  2.5-hour journey [from Ica] to Nazca.  Well, add to that an hour late in departing from Ica.  The driver then stopped for lunch about half an hour out of Ica despite protests from passengers.

Excerpt 03:  Nazca.  The two strange American chaps (one doing weights, the other very dark skinned with greyish hair) were leaving for Chile via Tacna.  Their bus was something like an hour late — we should’ve booked the 7.30pm instead of the 9.30pm then for Arequipa!  Sure enough, our bus came at about 10.30, and then we found two women in our seats.  The driver finally got a chap with an empty seat next to him to move to the back.  I’m sure two other chaps also got moved off the bus to make room for us but maybe I was wrong.

Excerpt 04:  Cuzco.  Arrived from Juliaca after sundown.  Collected at the train station by mini-bus, 10 of us tourists packed in like the locals are, and driven through unlit streets.  We were told that we were going this way into town because the direct route had suffered the effects of an earthquake.  At one point, the driver turned left into another unlit street and I saw the headlights of two mini-buses coming towards us, side by side.  It was one overtaking the other just before the junction!  I let out a long and low, “Ohhhhhhhhh…!” and the other passengers laughed at me.  Somehow, in a Peruvian sort of way, we managed to avoid a head-on collision.  With nine gringos in the bus, it was laughed off — the locals would probably not even have noticed it, let alone bat an eyelid.

[Gringo: what Peruvians call (usually white) foreigners — one version says this is from when the latter first arrived and, homesick, used to sing around the campfires, Green Grow The Rushes (in their own homeland).  You can google for more precise versions.]

Excerpt 05:  Cuzco.  Outside the [hotel] bathroom window which overlooks the Indian shacks by the Machu Picchu railway track under the bridge, the train was leaving noisily for Machu Picchu, hooting its way out of town like it does into town.  I remember the TV series Great Railway Journeys of the World — the one on Peru was about the world’s highest railway:  as the train was getting out of town, it had to hoot continuously because there were people selling, working, resting on the tracks.  People gathered up their things and chickens, and one peasant had a goat which refused to budge, so the train had to stop until the animal could be persuaded.

Excerpt 06:  Cuzco.  Tried to look for the Viasa office to change date of departure from Peru from the 20^th to the 27^th, giving us one more week to enjoy Cuzco.  It turned out to be a nightmare — everyone (including the traffic policeman in a little kiosk in the middle of the long road where the Viasa office was meant to be, according to the guide book) giving us wrong directions rather than saying they didn’t know.  

[ed., 2015:  This was something the guide book did warn us against:  Peruvians, or maybe all South Americans, will just give you any answer rather than say they don’t know.]

Excerpt 07:  Cuzco.  The man at the camping equipment hire shop said we could go back the next morning to collect the equipment, saying that they open at 9.  I said, “So we’ll see you at 9.”  He said, “No, come at 10.”  I said, “I thought you said you open at 9?”  He said, “Yes, 9, 10, something like that.  Come at 10.”

(Peru, 1986)

Old school values (Singapore)

When I was ten years old, I’d read about British teenagers having a summer job or even a yearlong one, e.g., as a newspaper delivery boy/girl, earning some pocket money.  Being keen to be financially independent, I used to envy them, as this was not available to someone my age in Singapore.  

A couple of years later, about two weeks before the start of the new school year, my uncle, who ran a bookshop supplying schools with textbooks, asked me if I’d like to assist him for the fortnight at one of the schools.  I was really excited about it, and felt very grown-up, working and earning some money, even if it was only two weeks’ worth and really just pocket money.

When my uncle came to pick me up, he found me clad in flip flops, the standard tropical weather footwear.  “They are too casual for work!  Go and put on some proper shoes.”

Thirty-two years later, I was on a visit home.  My uncle said he’d like to take my mother and me out to dinner.  I was staying at my brother’s, so his son, Kaikai (aged 17), was included.  

While we were waiting for my uncle to arrive in his car, I noticed Kaikai was in flip flops.  As my uncle was treating us to a meal, I didn’t think it would be the more common casual Singapore style — at a roadside stall, or in a food court — but at a restaurant: air-conditioning, tablecloths, napkins, with waiters and waitresses standing to attention not far away.  I said to Kaikai, “Ooh, you’re going to get ticked off wearing flip flops,” and told him about my own experience more than three decades earlier, when I was a few years younger than he.

Sure enough, when my uncle arrived, the first thing he noticed were the objectionable footwear.  Kaikai was told to “go and put on some proper shoes”.

(Singapore, 1965 / 1997)

Colour-blindness (Singapore / London)

During my BA days at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), I noticed one day a boy in my classical Chinese class wearing one pale green sock and one pale blue sock.  It turned out he was colour-blind.  On subsequent occasions, I discovered he couldn’t differentiate between dark green and dark red (maroon) when I pointed out the beds of tulips in a park and he couldn’t find them.  Ditto when I remarked on a lawn dotted profusely with tiny daisies.

This reminded me of my eldest sister’s friend back in the 60s in Singapore.  For some reason, he managed to pass his driving test — maybe it wasn’t a widely-known condition then?  If the traffic lights were aligned vertically, he’d know the top light was red and the bottom green.  If they were horizontal, however, he’d wait until the cars around him started driving off before he would.  If the roads were deserted and his was the only car, the poor chap would sit there for a while, not knowing if he should drive off, or he’d wait until another car appeared on the scene to give him an indication.  (Singaporeans are so law-abiding that they wouldn’t dare violate the law even if there were no other cars around for him to pose any danger to them.)

(Singapore, mid-1960s; London, late 1970s)

No common sense AND obstinate to boot (France)

Found in my journal entry of 05 September 2011 an account of my waiting at the luggage claim conveyor belt at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport:

This country-bumpkin-looking English woman (60s?), visiting her brother in midi-Pyrénées, picked out a total of 3 bright dark pink suitcases as hers before eventually identifying the right one.  They were all different shapes and shades of pink/red, but she still couldn’t be quite sure about each one, saying she’d need to look at her name tag before she could be sure.  I said to her, over and over again, that she should’ve tied a ribbon or something to it to make it stand out for easy and speedy identification, because the conveyor belt made it difficult to read labels fast enough.  

As if this wasn’t a stupid enough way of going about it, I had to lug the suitcase off the conveyor belt each time for her to have enough time to look at the tags for her name at close quarters, and put it back on when it turned out not to be hers.  The owner of the 2^nd or 3^rd one came hurrying over to claim her suitcase when she saw me taking it off the belt.  Luckily she wasn’t angry with me — if this was China or S.E.Asia, I’d have got a dirty and suspicious look almost for sure.  

The other amazing thing about this rather stupid woman is that each time I suggested she tie some form of distinguishing item to her case, she’d say, “As long as I can read the label to see if it’s got my name on it, it’ll be all right.”  Yes, madam, but someone else has to hump it off the conveyor belt for you first, then lift it back on to the belt.  I told her I have a black case, so I tie a strip of cloth to help speedy identification.  She said, “But your case is black, and there’re lots of them.  Mine’s red.”  Yet she managed to mistake 3 other red/pink ones before she found her own.  It’s most incomprehensible why she was still so recalcitrant about taking on board the suggestion.  Kept saying she just needed to see her name on the label.  I refused to give up and said it every time it happened, and eventually she said, “OK, point taken,” in a tone of voice that said I was being bossy.  Ungrateful on top of having no common sense.  

In hindsight, I should’ve just left her alone to drag every single similar-looking red/pink suitcase off the conveyor belt by herself each time.  Maybe she’ll learn when she has to find out the hard way.

From what I’d seen of this woman’s lack of common sense, I wouldn’t be surprised if, after finding out that the suitcase wasn’t hers, she’d just leave it on the floor instead of putting it back on the conveyor belt.  I was the victim of such stupid behaviour at Gatwick one year when I’d waited at the conveyor belt until, an hour later, every single piece of luggage had been claimed, then found that my suitcase had been left sitting on the floor at the far side, obviously by someone who’d originally thought it was his/hers.

(France, 2011)

Giving the cat a bath (Singapore)

Made the mistake, during my teens, of trying to wash the cat.  

Hands.  Paws.  Arms.  Claws.  Water – all over the bathroom, all over me.

Not to mention the meows and yeows – from me as well!  

Never again.

(Singapore, 1960s)

Party drinking Oriental style

The Japanese do not pour alcoholic drinks for themselves at a social meal.

The Koreans apparently go by the same rule, as I discovered at first hand.  A group of 14 Koreans from the Korean Housing Board had come to London to study the UK’s housing policy.  

When they were going back to Korea, they invited me and their English language teacher to their farewell party.  I was the only woman.  

The Korean chap on my left poured out my drink for me.  After a sip, I put the glass down, but the chap urged me to finish it as the glass was needed.  This is unhygienic enough as it is, but to be pressured into finishing off one’s wine in order to free up the glass for one’s fellow diners is not my idea of fun.

The Chinese way of party drinking is for one person (from the host side) to raise his glass to the guest(s), say something like “Here’s to our friendship”, then down it in one go.  Some people will turn the glass upside down on their heads to show it’s empty.  Some will tilt the glass forwards to show the other person it’s empty.  Then, it’s the turn of the guest(s) to follow suit — not only to drink, but to drain the contents in one go as well.  

If you are at a banquet and make the mistake of going along with the first person’s invitation to drink, you will then need to do the same for the other eight diners at your table.  (A typical banquet table is for ten people, with ten courses.)  If you don’t, you will make them lose face (see blog entry Chinese hospitality etiquette 01*), so you’ll be forced to do it for all nine fellow diners.  When they’ve all individually proposed a toast to you, it’s then your turn to return the toast to each of them in turn.  This means that they’ll each down their drinks twice (once when they propose a toast to you, and once when you return the toast), whilst you will down yours 9 x 2 times.

Linguaphone, a world famous teach-yourself-language-course company, sold some English language course to China in the 1980s, then sent two employees out a bit later to find out what the Chinese thought of the course.  Let’s call them John and Robert.  It was John who told me the story.  

John and Robert were treated to a banquet, and the usual toasts, of 茅台 máotái (54%–55%, made of wheat and sorghum), were proposed, individually and in turn by  the eight Chinese.  

Robert was a 14-pints-a-night drinker, and thought the little glasses of the clear liquid that looks like water would be most innocuous.  After 16 rounds of this fiery liquid, Robert started to eat the flower arrangement in the middle of the table.  The Chinese just love to get someone drunk, so they were nudging each other and laughing, “Look how red his face is!”  Stone drunk, Robert was a deadweight and had to be half carried back to his hotel room, by two men trying to prop him up with a hand under each of his armpits, feet dragging along the ground.

My boss, Dr. Page, Chief Geologist at Conoco Taiwan, was once invited, alongside the Vice President, Mr. Bolleter, to a Chinese banquet-style dinner by the state oil company, our partners in our exploration for oil.  Both men are American, drink bourbon, and 6’ 6” and 6’ 4” respectively, so the Chinese expected them to be serious drinkers.  

The toast was first proposed to Mr. Bolleter as Vice President.  The drink served, kaoliang (高粱 gāoliáng), is made of sorghum, looks like water but is 54%–63% — its nickname is “Firewater of Taiwan”.  When the proposer of the toast downed his (spirit drink size) portion of kaoliang and tilted the small glass forward towards Mr. Bolleter, the latter thought, “That’s a small portion,” and downed his too.  Then, a flush spread from his neck up his face to his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot.  The host side exchanged knowing looks and smiled.  The big tall American bourbon drinker was beaten by their kaoliang!

Dr. Page noticed that there was a potted plant next to him, so he chucked his kaoliang into the pot and replaced it with water.  When the toast was proposed to Dr. Page and he downed it in one go, the host side looked carefully for signs of the flush — none came.  Everyone was impressed.  A lot of machismo is attached to the ability to drink alcohol (equally to chilli eating).

Throughout the rest of the meal, Dr. Page matched each proposer glass for glass, and gained a lot of kudos.  

I don’t know what happened to the plant.  Undoubtedly had a huge hangover the next day…

(The Orient)

* https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2014/10/chinese-hospitality-etiquette-01-china_25.html 

Boobs and bellies (Prague)

In August 2011, I’d taken the long distance coach to Prague, and back.  

It wasn’t exactly a mad rush for boarding the coach to London, but people didn’t quite respect personal space as they queued up to board.  You moved forward one step, they moved up one and a half, almost plastering the front of their bodies against you.  (Ditto the Tourist Information queue at Venice train station in September 1981.)  Uggh.

(Prague, 2011)