Half full or half empty: 02 (London / Singapore)

When I was made redundant at age 58, I was traumatised.  The betrayal factor aside (pushed out by conniving rather than the budgetary constraints put forward by them), I was too young to retire (and claim my tiny state pension) but too old to get back into mainstream (no PhD, no publications).

    An ex-student was working for a pub chain, so I asked her to make enquiries for me.  She said it was brain dead work, just dispensing drinks, delivering food, collecting empties.

    I did get in, more than a year after the initial enquiry, and found it an easy enough way to earn something (albeit peanuts at minimal wage levels) for paying my bills, especially at my age and without any experience as a waitress.  Even the physical side of it, walking six miles in my eight-hour shift, was treated as paid gym sessions, as I put it to customers who commented on how hard I worked, as I seemed to be the only one pacing the floor, they said.

    This half-full attitude helped sustain me for six years, adding to my tiny income pot, which is better than nothing.  (I have no work pension.)  Kept me fit too.  Got me out of the house.  I had lots of laughs with the customers.  The interaction kept my brain active.

    This attitude stems from my childhood days.  Upbringing (家教 jiā jiào / “home teaching”) is so important for later life, I’m finding increasingly as I get older and observe the bad behaviour of people.  Blame the parents, I often think.

    Sundays at home when I was a child would tend to be party-food days, i.e., not the routine rice plus four or five dishes (meat, veg, fish).  Party food would be things like poh piah (薄餅 báo bǐng / “thin pancake”, the S.E.Asian version of spring rolls) or fried rice vermicelli, a nice change from the norm but with lots of ingredients to get ready, and lots more work.  For example, bean sprouts would need the roots pinched off (even though they were clean), therefore as many hands on deck as possible, or the ingredients wouldn’t be ready in time.

    The way we did it at home was: put the huge pile of bean sprouts in the middle of the table; parcel out big handfuls to each person at the table (the women, of course); then “ready steady go” and we’d start the “race” to see who could finish her pile first.

    There was no rush or pressure to it, nor proper score keeping as such, even though it sounds like a competition the way I’ve put it here.  The “race” was only a bit of fun injected to make it less monotonous than just sitting there, nipping off root after root after root.  The adults would chat, we children would listen, it was all relaxed and fun.

    To this day, I still look upon such repetitive, so-called brain-dead chores as relaxing and meditative.  That’s definitely half full.

(London, 2012–2018; Singapore, 1960s)

Chinese sayings: 15 (人棄我取 / 人弃我取)

人棄我取 / 人弃我取

rén qì wǒ qǔ

“people abandon I take”

This was originally about buying grain when it is at a low price (the “people abandon” bit is about the grain not being in demand / sales stagnating), and selling it when the demand goes up.

(baidu.com says it first emerged in 西漢·司馬遷《史記·貨殖列傳》/ Biographies of Merchants, in the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, Han dynasty.)

    It is now used for referring to not competing with people (for something), happy to take whatever people don’t want.

    This reminds me of Freddie, the Administrative Assistant at Conoco Taiwan, a native of Hunan.  He had been in the air force of the Republic of China, fighting alongside the Americans in Vietnam against the communists.  

    One day, he told me, an American came along with a whole box of watches for handing out for free.  One of the watches fell out of the box in the jostle, so nobody wanted it.  Freddie thought, “It’s free anyway, so I’ll take it.”  He said, when he told me the story in 1975, quite a few years later: “Those who’d got one of those watches said theirs had given up the ghost.  Mine’s still working — perfectly.”

    In this day and age, this saying could be applied to recycling:  picking up things other people throw away and re-using them.  Very green.

Repeating things: 02 (Singapore, Taipei, London)

A couple of days after my arrival in Taipei to take up my new job, the Singapore office rang and said they’d like me back on secondment.

    The paperwork for the Taiwan-bound oil rig and workboat(s) had to be got ready, as well as the visas for the Singapore-based workmen (geologists, geophysicists, engineers, etc) who were going to work on the rig.  The Taipei office had nothing to do in the meantime, as drilling couldn’t be commenced, so they might as well give the work to me rather than get someone in the Singapore office to do it.

    I was to work under Mr. Jones, the Chief Engineer who’d be going out to Taipei himself.

    Mr. Jones (his full name: Evan O’Neill Jones, nickname Casey Jones) was rather fearsome.  He had bushy eyebrows that stood out.  He was ultra-efficient (and demanding).  He had a Texan accent (which I’d never come across before).

    Every morning, I’d wait for him to buzz me to go and take dictation (Pitman shorthand) for all the correspondence related to getting everything ready for drilling to start in Taiwan.  

    He’d have a pile of files (often 10, if not 20) stacked up in front of him on his desk.  The dictation would start: "File 1, letter to Mr X of Company Y.  Dear Mr X, …."  When this was done, he’d place the file face down in another pile (so that it’d all be in the same order when it came to filing the letters) and move on to the next file.  Once all the dictation was done, he’d let me go back to my office to type them up for him to sign later, and he’d get on with his work for the Singapore office.

    Mr. Jones’s Texan accent was a problem for me at first.  The moment I couldn’t catch a word, I’d ask him to repeat.

    Soon however, I discovered that he’d repeat things anyway — having worked a long time as an oilman talking to rigs on the radio.  

    For those who might not know, the typical radio-speak is: “Good morning, John, good morning, John.  How are you this morning, how are you this morning?  Over.”

    So, I stopped asking him to repeat anything.  Just sat back and waited for the repeat to come.  

    He was so impressed by me that whenever his secretary in Taipei (who was from Hong Kong, and the only other person in the Taipei office who could do Pitman shorthand) went on her annual leave, he’d borrow me from my Chief Geologist boss.  

    When the Taipei office shut down after two years (didn’t find any oil) and he was transferred to London, he asked if I’d like to go with him as his secretary.  (No, couldn’t get a work visa for me as I was not highly specialised enough as a secretary to get one as a foreigner.)

    I paid him a visit the moment I arrived in London (to study).  Whenever his Scottish secretary Beverly went on her annual leave, he’d ask me to stand in for her.  I wasn’t on the books of the employment agency used by Conoco, so they would instruct the agency to register me just for the few weeks that Beverly was away, because Conoco couldn’t employ me directly as a temp.  The agency found it odd that someone should come and be on their books just for a few weeks each year, then disappear for the rest of the year, but they got their commission, so they were happy enough with it.

(Singapore, 1975; Taipei, 1975-6; London, 1977-8)

Repeating things: 01

A colleague at the Conoco Taiwan office in Taipei had the habit of repeating what she’d said — immediately after she’d said it.  

    Sometimes, it’d be a joke, so I can understand why she’d want to say it again, because she found it so funny that she wanted to run it through a second time immediately, for another laugh.  

    If it was an instruction, I can understand why too: just to make sure the listener gets it right.  

    Often, however, it’d be nothing particularly interesting.  

    If she were to repeat it a while later (a day/week/month later), I can put it down to memory, but no, she’d say it again straightaway.

    Later, however, I discovered that she wasn’t the only one, and that in fact it’s a fairly Chinese trait. 

    It is irritating to me to have things repeated (unless it’s in the spirit of teaching, especially language), if not insulting, as if I wasn’t able to understand it the first time.

    As an interpreter, however, I find it rather useful.

    During my first couple of interpreting stints, I’d stop the Chinese speakers whenever I couldn’t understand them (not difficult with the range of accents found in such a vast country) and ask them to repeat.

    Soon, I discovered that they’d repeat things.  They’d say something once, then say, “就是说 / jiù shì shuō / That is to say / In other words” and go back over what they’d said — not necessarily for important things that they wanted to ensure that the listener would understand.  

    So, I learned to leave the gaps (in my note-taking), wait for the “就是说”, go back to the gaps and fill them in during the second round of the same thing.  

    I now teach this trick to my students to give them confidence — they often panic/despair when they fail to catch everything in the first reading of their Listening Comprehension exercise.  I tell them that it happens to me too, and they feel much comforted.

Four-digit lottery: 01 (Singapore)

Google: Quote Toto was established to control widespread illegal gambling in Singapore during the 1960s. Unquote

In the ‘60s, people in Singapore were playing a form of four-digit lottery with numbers chosen by themselves.  All I knew at the time as a child was that it seemed to be run by private groups, as it was all a bit hush hush — I’d get sent by the grown-ups to a side door of someone’s house (the syndicate head?), hand over the slip of paper with the permutations and other instructions (how many days/weeks to be repeated, etc.), plus the money.

    The inspiration for the four digits could be anything, most commonly a new born baby/puppy/kitten.  Each digit would be written on a small square of paper, scrunched up, thrown in the path of the baby/puppy/kitten.  Whichever number was grabbed/sniffed by the picker would get written down, in that order or switched around in different permutations for more chances of winning.

    We lived by a main road, on a straight stretch.  One day, some roadworks were being carried out in the section outside our house.  When they went off for the evening, the workers placed a barrier around the hole they’d dug, and hung a little blinking light on it.  Around 3am, a car came speeding down that straight stretch.  The driver (probably young and male) saw the barrier and light too late, swerved last minute and the car flipped over onto its top, with a loud bang.  It woke everyone up, we all rushed out to take a look, talked about it for a few minutes, and went back to bed.  

    My brother somehow managed to sleep through it.  When the lottery results came out, the four digits were the same ones as the car’s registration number but backwards.  My brother was very cross when he heard about the accident later that evening, saying if he’d seen that the car had flipped over, he’d have taken down the number and reversed it — and won the lottery!

(Singapore, 1960s/70s)

Talking for everyone else

I’ve heard of pregnant women “eating for two”, but there’s also “talking for two [or more]”.  This takes a number of forms.

1. Talking for self, and for one’s children.  When I went back home for a visit after a 14-year gap, I met my eldest sister’s two daughters (aged six and four at the time) for the first time.  I thought I’d get to know them by asking them questions like “How old are you?” and “What hobbies do you have?”  For each question, my sister would step in and provide the answer.   Eventually, I had to say, “Do you mind?  I’m not so much interested in the answers as trying to break the ice.”  I can understand, to a certain extent, why my sister should’ve done that:  she might’ve been playing the protective mother role, in case the children were feeling a bit awed, but it ended up making me feel bad, telling off an elder which is not an acceptable thing in the Chinese culture (face and all that). 
2. Talking for self, and for one’s spouse.  In my experience so far, it’s more often the wife answering for the husband — so far, two wives I’ve come across.  In one case, the wife is the one who knows me longer, so I can sort of understand why she should be answering for the husband as he knows me less well.  In the second case, the wife is new to me, having married the chap some 20-odd years after I’d known him (he was a student of mine on my evening course).  Both husbands are in their 80s, which makes me feel that the wives (one 82, one 61) are almost treating the husbands as being too doddery to conduct a conversation in their own right.  (Which I find a bit insulting.)
3. Speaking for self, and everyone else present.  This form takes place when a guest of theirs comes to visit.  Again, trying to break the ice, I ask the guest things like where s/he lives/works, and like the mother example in (1) above, the hostess jumps in and speaks for the guest, even though the guest speaks good English and is a grown-up (with a university-age daughter).  (And actually, the hostess does not speak good English herself, which makes it even more insulting to the guest…)
4. Speaking for the speaker.  This is jumping in and finishing off the sentence for the speaker — practically always with the WRONG ending.  Feeling that I have to give him/her face, I can only employ one of the following: (i) say, “No,” and carry on with my sentence; (ii) go silent until they finish off the finishing off of my sentence, then carry on as if I hadn’t heard the butting in with the wrong version; (iii) get riled and say, “Please don’t finish off my sentence for me,” which was what I did one day for the first time — and felt a baddie for the rest of our meal together.  (It’s unfair that I should be made to feel the baddie…)

Student Philip* (London)

Philip*, like Emma*, was another case of knowing some Mandarin already before he came to do the full-time degree course, therefore not an absolute beginner.  This was probably why he was a bit casual about his school work.

    He was late on more than one occasion for my 9am class.  When he said he should go and get an alarm clock, I offered him mine, saying he could have it on long loan until the end of his course, so that he could save on a bit of money.  (I also taught him my method of using my bladder as an alarm clock, which so surprised him he nearly fell off his chair, wondering if he’d misheard me.)

    After a term, like Emma, Philip also started a relationship with someone, so his attention was somewhat diverted from his studies.

    The full-time degree course students at this particular university do their Year Abroad in Year 3, for which they had to pass every Year 2 module.  I was the invigilator for one of the Year 2 modules Philip was sitting the paper for in June.  

    It was obvious to me, even from where I was sitting at the front of the room, that Philip was unable to answer the questions on the test paper.  He sat there, trying to look busy, with nothing to write down.  I could see that he was suddenly realising that the chickens were coming home to roost for him, as he looked terrible.

    At one point during the two-hour paper, he got up to go to the loo.  As the invigilator, I had to go with him.  Even from outside the door of the gents, I could hear him throwing up.  This happened again half an hour later.

    At the end of the exam, I took him to another room to have a quiet chat on the side.  His face looked like he was expecting a lecture / ticking off / reprimand.  

    Instead, he heard me say, “You should apply for Extenuating Circumstances.  I will back you up, as I was witness to your being sick in the loo.  If your application gets approved, you will be allowed to do a re-sit in August, which will give you time to catch up before then.  If you don’t put in an application, you won’t be able to go on your Year Abroad, which means having to hang around in London for a whole year as there’s no Year 3 for you to join.”

    He’s now a teacher himself — in China.  He wrote in a FaceBook message something to the effect of, “I now try to teach like you.”  I don't think he meant just the Chinese language side of it.

(London, 2009?)

PS:  For those who might be interested in "chickens coming home to roost",

(from googling)

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The fact that chickens usually come home to rest and sleep has long been known, but the idea was used figuratively only in 1809, when Robert Southey wrote, “Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost” ( The Curse of Kehama ).

Unquote

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... our past mistakes or wrongdoings have come back to cause us problems.

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it causes problems at a later date, especially when this is expected or seems deserved

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* not their real names