How to get adults to eat their food (UK)

My first professional interpreting assignment was during my third year as a BA student, in 1980.  A textile factory in China had bought machinery from a firm in north England, and although the contract included servicing, the Chinese side decided to send over four people to learn how to fix minor technical problems so that they wouldn’t have to wait for a British engineer to go out.

The British side had booked the delegation into a five-star hotel, converted from a manor house sited in acres of grounds complete with oak trees and grazing black and white cows, and a French chef.

At the delegation’s first meal, I noticed that they hardly touched their lunch.  I’d helped them order from the menu: all Western food (grilled steak, beef stroganoff, lasagne, chicken Provençal, Lancashire hotpot), served with the usual potatoes (chipped, or mashed, or roasted) and vegetables (boiled french beans, carrots, peas).  They were, however, individual portions, so that each person had his/her own dish, e.g., the person who’d chosen chicken Provençal would just have chicken Provençal.

I decided to try something different, and had a private chat with the chef.  We would still order five dishes, but could the kitchen present the food in a Chinese way:  serve the meat (cut up into small pieces) and vegetables in separate dishes, substitute the potatoes with rice, and place all of them in the middle of the table so that everyone could tuck in?

The group polished off all the dishes, and at every subsequent meal, too, for the rest of their fortnight’s training.

(Accrington, Lancashire, England, 1980)

How to beat the pickpocket (Morocco)

An English assistant editor I used to work with on The Heart of The Dragon, Andy, was in Morocco.  He had been warned about pick-pockets, so he left his hotel room one morning with his trouser pockets stuffed with toilet paper, neatly folded like paper money.  

On the bus, he left a hand feeling his upper legs, but pretended he hadn't noticed.  When the man got off the bus, Andy followed him.  The man went into an alleyway to check his pickings.  Andy stood at the corner, peeking round.  

After the man found that his pickings were just wads of toilet paper, he looked up to see his victim watching him.  Talk about adding insult to injury!  

*Andy is the protagonist in my blog "How to do business" [in Turkey].

(Morocco, 1970s)

How to backfire swearing: 2 (Singapore)

During a family gathering with my siblings on my recent trip to Singapore, our reminiscing unearthed the story of my father’s swearing, which I’d forgotten about.

In the three southern Chinese dialects that I can (sort of) speak (the Teochew/Cháozhōu 潮州 dialect, the Hokkien/Fújiàn 福建 dialect, and the Cantonese/Guǎngdōng 广东 dialect), one way of swearing at the other party is to say, “F..k your mother!” which is very insulting.

When my father got angry with us (the children) one day, he used this phrase.  We laughed at him, “But our mother is your own wife!”  So, he abandoned that phrase.

The next time he swore, he chose an alternative, which is the Teochew equivalent of the English “son of a bitch”.  The Teochew version is: 狗種仔／狗种仔 “dog breed child/children” (i.e., not human breed).  We laughed at him, “But we are your children, so you’re calling yourself a dog!”

He gave up swearing altogether after that.

(Singapore, 1960–70s)

How to backfire swearing: 1 (London)

When I was working on the Channel Four series The Heart of The Dragon in the early 80s, there was suddenly a spate of phone calls with the caller using obscene language (“Do you want to f..k?”).  One call even had a little child, who seemed barely able to speak (probably aged five), asking the obscene question, obviously being prompted by an adult in the background.

My response to the first call was stunned silence, not knowing what to do.  After a couple more, I decided to take action and went out to buy a whistle, intending to blow the whistle really loudly down the phone line.  Unfortunately, the nearest available whistles were from a children’s toy museum (Pollock’s Toy Museum in Scala Street).  Being toys, they all had a low muffled sort of pitch to them, nowhere near shrill enough to deliver a shock to the perpetrator.

I went for Plan B.  The next time the call came and the question was put to me, I said, “Pardon?” innocently.  The caller was tricked into repeating his obscene question, thus making the obscenity lose its impact.  After a few more “Pardon?”, he twigged and rang off in frustration with the parting shot, “Oh, f..k you!”  It felt so good to have the tables turned on him, with him being the flustered one.  The calls never came again.

 (London, 1983)

One Chinese way of answering telephone calls

My landlord in Taiwan (1975–1976), a retired soldier who’d gone over to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek upon his retreat from the mainland, used to answer the telephone with, ‘喂，找谁？wèi, zhǎo shéi? / “hello, look for who” ’.  

I used to think that it was a bit unfriendly, especially since he had a loud booming voice, and that it was his own style.  Then, I recalled my second sister telephoning a friend of hers in the 60s in Singapore.  The friend’s name is Lee Diang.  

Unfortunately, in the Teochew (Cháozhōu 潮州) dialect, “who” is pronounced “dee diang”.  Equally unfortunately, both parties kept mishearing each other.

This is how the phone call went.  

Lee Diang’s father (LDF) picked up the phone with:

LDF:  (in Teochew) chway dee diang /  “look for who?”

My sister Eve misheard his “dee diang / who” and thought he said “Lee Diang” which is her friend’s name, so my sister said:

Eve:  Yes.

LDF:  What do you mean “yes”!??  I asked you “look for dee diang?”!

Eve:  Yes, I’m looking for Lee Diang.

Lee Diang’s father misheard my sister’s “Lee Diang” as “dee diang”, so he got quite cross:

LDF:  I asked you who you’re looking for, and you say you’re looking for who!  What a stupid answer!

And he slammed the phone down in frustrated anger.

(Singapore, 1960s; Taiwan, 1975–6)

Simplification of Chinese characters: 2

The simplification of the Chinese script does indeed make it quicker to write out the characters, with a lot of them being reduced from double-digit stroke count to single-digit.

However, there are occasions when this can have serious consequences.

In the early 80s, I was sent a translation done by someone else to proof-read.  One of the verbs made odd sense in the context, so I asked for the original.

It turned out that the sentence, hand-written by the translator, was mis-read by the typist.  The end result was the complete opposite in meaning.

The sentence was: Our company has established a branch in Singapore 我们公司在新加坡设有分行 wǒmen gōngsī zài Xīnjiāpō shèyǒu fēnháng / “we company in Singapore establish have branch office”.

Now, 设有 shèyǒu / “establish have” in its traditional form is 設有, which looks quite different in the first character.  

Unfortunately, the simplification of the speech radical on the left of 設 (from 言 yán to 讠) makes 设有 look very similar to 没有 méiyǒu / “not have”, which has water radical on the left (氵shuǐ), especially when hand-written and read in a hurry (讠 vs氵; 设 vs 没).

The second unfortunate thing about this verb in this context is that it makes equal sense for a company to have set up a branch in Singapore and for it not to have a branch in Singapore, but the two are completely opposite different in meaning.

The exception would be if the company in question is Barings Bank.  Post-Nick Leeson (who’d crashed the bank in 1995), it wouldn’t make any difference whether Barings had set up a branch in Singapore or did not have a branch in Singapore.

我们银行在新加坡设有分行 wǒmen yínháng zài Xīnjiāpō shèyǒu fēnháng / “we bank in Singapore establish have branch office”.

我们银行在新加坡没有分行 wǒmen yínháng zài Xīnjiāpō méiyǒu fēnháng / “we bank in Singapore not have branch office”.

Oops 1 (London)

I’d completely forgotten it was Remembrance Day.

As I was finishing my Skype lesson at 11am, using the wifi at the pub where I do one shift a week, one of my bar colleagues rang the wall bell behind the bar.  

For those for whom the significance might not be clear, pubs in Britain ring the bell twice towards closing time, with the second bell signalling the end of orders and the punters then have about ten minutes to finish their drinks and leave the premises.  On a Saturday night, when closing time is a bit later than the rest of the week, the first bell is at 11.15pm, and the second and last at 11.30pm.

I laughed out loud and said to my student in Australia, “Haha!  It’s 11am and they’re ringing the bell!”  There were about 30 customers scattered around the tables, and some of them turned round and looked at me.  I thought perhaps I was speaking too loudly because of my headphones, and being perched at the high table in the corner, my voice was bouncing off the walls more than it would’ve at the floor level and amongst all the tables.

It wasn’t until a day later that it suddenly dawned on me the bell was rung to call for the minute’s silence that we observe at 11am on 11 November…

(London, 2014)