Phrases you don't expect to hear from enlightened people, much less enlightened people living in Beijing:
Phrase Number One: "I knew it was fucked up, but I just let you go ahead and FAIL because THESE PEOPLE have GOT TO LEARN somehow!" (Speaker: American Boss. Situation: Missing IT equipment before large, large presentation. Result: Egg on my face. Boss's assessment: Well, since you ended up looking so bad, it only reflects badly on the Chinese people who can't organize anything! They need to learn from this! Real result: I look like an ass. No one learned but me, and what I learned was largely that I couldn't trust my boss.)
Phrase Number Two: "Our driver can't speak a WORD of English! I send him to English class every week and if he still can't say how long it will take to get to Betty's Nails then I say we get a new driver!" (Speaker: Wife of someone who works in a major firm in the US who was sent to China while that nasty Sexual Harassment suit against him is working its way through the legal system. Situation: She's been here for six years but still can't speak a single word of Chinese, hence she has handed me, a total stranger sitting one table away from her in a restaurant, her cell phone to call her driver to get him out of that English lesson to take her three blocks away to the nail salon. Result: Her pedicure looks great, I'm sure, but the only English the driver learns that day is from me, the useful catch-phrase, "Crazy Bitch!")
Phrase Number Three: "The problem with the French is that they're Catholics, and the Catholics have forgotten to look at Jesus. They're all wrapped up in that Mary person." (Speaker: Wife of Leader of Study Tour I was on in Graduate School. Comment: Apropos of nothing--and made on a long bus trek to Kanding, back in the day when a single lane road connected Kanding to the rest of the world. Traffic flowed East one day, and West the next. Looking back, I realize now that she just wanted to remind us that she had studied French which therefore somehow made her "classy" and that for the same reason--"class"--she wanted us to know she had been Born Again. (Hey, there's a certain governor in US what would just love her right now.)
Phrase Number Four: This situation is oddly related to Number Two. I'm at someone's house for dinner: the phone rings. The host, who speaks fluent Chinese, reaches into his pocket, answers it, says a few phrases in Chinese which I don't quite understand--or worse I think I understand but which are so foul I don't want to--then hangs up. "That was Rock," he says with a chuckle. "Been here 16 years and he still can't tell the house madame what kind of hookers he likes." Dear God, it has been proven to me that I do indeed know how to say "rimming" in putonghua.And worse: I went out with Rock once--just once--and my face burns with shame as I recall how bad I felt when he didn't call me for a second date. (For the record I did NOT put out--which probably explains it.)
Phrase Number Five: This one deserves a longer explanation. I went to someone's house for dinner. I arrive, meatloaf in hand, and find a couple of young stoners playing a video game, while the host and his very young, very thin girlfriend (not to be confused with his wife, mind you) sit in glassy-eyed silence. Rock music pours out of the speakers. (At least it was a band I like). The Host finally looks at me and utters these deathless words: "I'm hungry. Get in the kitchen and cook them beans, woman!"
The kicker: He was serious. The beans were those six-inch-long green beans. There were perhaps twelve of them. Dinner was to consist of my meatloaf, one orange sliced into quarters, two eggs scrambled with about eight cherry tomatoes, and half of those beans, sliced and cooked with one-quarter of an onion. For five people. The host (who ended up cooking the damn beans himself) realized part way through the meal that perhaps it was a bit on the scanty side, so he went to the kitchen, and came back with a single-sized serving bag of potato chips, which he ripped open with his teeth. He dumped the contents on top of the quartered orange and said "There! Eat!" And we did, the conversation as scanty as the meal. Dessert: host flossed his teeth at the table. I did not regret not bringing a carrot cake.
I realize that I am being a horrible guest, a really rotten human being, by commenting upon a meal where I was a guest. Guests are supposed to put up and shut up and help with the washing up, not post mean comments about someone of whom they are really quite fond. (And yet I still write about my sainted mother...) However, it's just that it was all so unexpected: how often is a guest commanded in the most offensive and sexist of language to get in the kitchen and cook a meal AFTER SHE HAS ALREADY BROUGHT THE MAIN COURSE? I do love those meals when we get together in kitchen and cook and laugh together but to pull this off you need a little communication before hand and a lot less ganja. For the record I had never cooked for this person in his kitchen before--nor he in mine--so it was all very unexpected and unprecedented and just plain bizarre. I am remarkably cranky when hungry and hardly a sweetheart when I'm not: I felt like someone had handed me a pair of tap shoes and said, "Go, Little Darky, Dance!" I was older than everyone there--even older than the host--and three of the people there were younger than my own daughter. Just because I pushed one human being out my nether bits does not entitle everyone to my services as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.
Solution? I washed the dishes (except the greasy pots and pans, yeech) then got the hell out. I vowed never to cook there again, not so much for the weird attitude of "You are old and you are a mother therefore you will feed us" but for the fact that he cooked the beans in margarine. An eater of margarine will never be a friend of mine. Butter, olive oil, or bacon fat: these are acceptable. Expensive fake spread that doesn't even have the grace of being cholesterol-free: never. I may be a bitch but I have my standards. And that's Phrase Number Six of today's countdown.
Phrase Number One: "I knew it was fucked up, but I just let you go ahead and FAIL because THESE PEOPLE have GOT TO LEARN somehow!" (Speaker: American Boss. Situation: Missing IT equipment before large, large presentation. Result: Egg on my face. Boss's assessment: Well, since you ended up looking so bad, it only reflects badly on the Chinese people who can't organize anything! They need to learn from this! Real result: I look like an ass. No one learned but me, and what I learned was largely that I couldn't trust my boss.)
Phrase Number Two: "Our driver can't speak a WORD of English! I send him to English class every week and if he still can't say how long it will take to get to Betty's Nails then I say we get a new driver!" (Speaker: Wife of someone who works in a major firm in the US who was sent to China while that nasty Sexual Harassment suit against him is working its way through the legal system. Situation: She's been here for six years but still can't speak a single word of Chinese, hence she has handed me, a total stranger sitting one table away from her in a restaurant, her cell phone to call her driver to get him out of that English lesson to take her three blocks away to the nail salon. Result: Her pedicure looks great, I'm sure, but the only English the driver learns that day is from me, the useful catch-phrase, "Crazy Bitch!")
Phrase Number Three: "The problem with the French is that they're Catholics, and the Catholics have forgotten to look at Jesus. They're all wrapped up in that Mary person." (Speaker: Wife of Leader of Study Tour I was on in Graduate School. Comment: Apropos of nothing--and made on a long bus trek to Kanding, back in the day when a single lane road connected Kanding to the rest of the world. Traffic flowed East one day, and West the next. Looking back, I realize now that she just wanted to remind us that she had studied French which therefore somehow made her "classy" and that for the same reason--"class"--she wanted us to know she had been Born Again. (Hey, there's a certain governor in US what would just love her right now.)
Phrase Number Four: This situation is oddly related to Number Two. I'm at someone's house for dinner: the phone rings. The host, who speaks fluent Chinese, reaches into his pocket, answers it, says a few phrases in Chinese which I don't quite understand--or worse I think I understand but which are so foul I don't want to--then hangs up. "That was Rock," he says with a chuckle. "Been here 16 years and he still can't tell the house madame what kind of hookers he likes." Dear God, it has been proven to me that I do indeed know how to say "rimming" in putonghua.And worse: I went out with Rock once--just once--and my face burns with shame as I recall how bad I felt when he didn't call me for a second date. (For the record I did NOT put out--which probably explains it.)
Phrase Number Five: This one deserves a longer explanation. I went to someone's house for dinner. I arrive, meatloaf in hand, and find a couple of young stoners playing a video game, while the host and his very young, very thin girlfriend (not to be confused with his wife, mind you) sit in glassy-eyed silence. Rock music pours out of the speakers. (At least it was a band I like). The Host finally looks at me and utters these deathless words: "I'm hungry. Get in the kitchen and cook them beans, woman!"
The kicker: He was serious. The beans were those six-inch-long green beans. There were perhaps twelve of them. Dinner was to consist of my meatloaf, one orange sliced into quarters, two eggs scrambled with about eight cherry tomatoes, and half of those beans, sliced and cooked with one-quarter of an onion. For five people. The host (who ended up cooking the damn beans himself) realized part way through the meal that perhaps it was a bit on the scanty side, so he went to the kitchen, and came back with a single-sized serving bag of potato chips, which he ripped open with his teeth. He dumped the contents on top of the quartered orange and said "There! Eat!" And we did, the conversation as scanty as the meal. Dessert: host flossed his teeth at the table. I did not regret not bringing a carrot cake.
I realize that I am being a horrible guest, a really rotten human being, by commenting upon a meal where I was a guest. Guests are supposed to put up and shut up and help with the washing up, not post mean comments about someone of whom they are really quite fond. (And yet I still write about my sainted mother...) However, it's just that it was all so unexpected: how often is a guest commanded in the most offensive and sexist of language to get in the kitchen and cook a meal AFTER SHE HAS ALREADY BROUGHT THE MAIN COURSE? I do love those meals when we get together in kitchen and cook and laugh together but to pull this off you need a little communication before hand and a lot less ganja. For the record I had never cooked for this person in his kitchen before--nor he in mine--so it was all very unexpected and unprecedented and just plain bizarre. I am remarkably cranky when hungry and hardly a sweetheart when I'm not: I felt like someone had handed me a pair of tap shoes and said, "Go, Little Darky, Dance!" I was older than everyone there--even older than the host--and three of the people there were younger than my own daughter. Just because I pushed one human being out my nether bits does not entitle everyone to my services as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.
Solution? I washed the dishes (except the greasy pots and pans, yeech) then got the hell out. I vowed never to cook there again, not so much for the weird attitude of "You are old and you are a mother therefore you will feed us" but for the fact that he cooked the beans in margarine. An eater of margarine will never be a friend of mine. Butter, olive oil, or bacon fat: these are acceptable. Expensive fake spread that doesn't even have the grace of being cholesterol-free: never. I may be a bitch but I have my standards. And that's Phrase Number Six of today's countdown.
Geez girl, you need to start using your arsehole filter a bit more! What - it's still in the shop being repaired? Who the hell are you hanging out with? Or are you like the Bermuda Triangle for arseholes? Anyhoo, very impressed you know how to put 'rimming' into a phrase in putonghua - Laoshi, zhen hao! You might want to start asking a few more questions when you get dinner invites, though, especially if you find yourself bringing the main course. Might want to ask if they plan on smoking weed before hand, so you can bring enough for them to get their munch on!
ReplyDeleteVirg, I couldn't agree with you more. "A casual potluck" means to me, a Yank, that everyone brings something and contributes. "You bring the main dish and then cook the sides" was definitely not part of the invite. Will get myself new set of balls/arse filter or whatever it is I need, quite possibly a new set of friends. This is what you get for leaving Beijing 12 years ago--you're too hard to replace!
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