Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Afternoon
After an unusually long and mild spring, SUMMER has announced its presence with authority (Reference from the movie, Bull Durham. Watch the movie if you haven't yet. Full of pearls of wisdom that will change your life). The thermometer in the car read 37 C (which is nearly 99 F). The humidity is only 65%.
Ate DIM SUM today. Countless "ladies that lunch" are in attendance. Plus two gossipy, early-twenty-something waifs sitting at the next table going on about:
-Empowering one's self.
-Persevering while working an unsatisfying job.
-Disappointing one's self because of a failed relationship.
Normally I don't eavesdrop, but these two women are loud and hilarious. It is all I can do to keep from spitting out my shrimp dumpling in a fit of laughter. That would be a waste of good a shrimp dumping. These two no doubt have shelves full of self-help books and TiVo Oprah and The View without fail.
The midweek Dim Sum is REWARD for a visit to a U.S. governmental office. My father needs to take care of social security paperwork so we visit the U.S. Consulate. The aggravation starts even before we entered the building. The first guard says something to us in Cantonese. "We don't speak Cantonese," is my reply. Next guard directs us to do something - in Cantonese. "Could you speak English, please," I respond with teeth-clinched, trying to be diplomatic. Third guard waves us over and starts rattling off something Cantonese. My father snaps, "Speak English!" My thoughts turned to the Samuel L. Jackson character, Jules , from the movie Pulp Fiction. In my mind, I replayed my father's reply, slighted edited, "English, Mother Fucker, do you speak it?" Now if only my father wore a Jerry Curl and was holding a 9mm the scene would have been complete.
Is it too much to expect English to be spoken at the U.S. Consulate?
Ate DIM SUM today. Countless "ladies that lunch" are in attendance. Plus two gossipy, early-twenty-something waifs sitting at the next table going on about:
-Empowering one's self.
-Persevering while working an unsatisfying job.
-Disappointing one's self because of a failed relationship.
Normally I don't eavesdrop, but these two women are loud and hilarious. It is all I can do to keep from spitting out my shrimp dumpling in a fit of laughter. That would be a waste of good a shrimp dumping. These two no doubt have shelves full of self-help books and TiVo Oprah and The View without fail.
The midweek Dim Sum is REWARD for a visit to a U.S. governmental office. My father needs to take care of social security paperwork so we visit the U.S. Consulate. The aggravation starts even before we entered the building. The first guard says something to us in Cantonese. "We don't speak Cantonese," is my reply. Next guard directs us to do something - in Cantonese. "Could you speak English, please," I respond with teeth-clinched, trying to be diplomatic. Third guard waves us over and starts rattling off something Cantonese. My father snaps, "Speak English!" My thoughts turned to the Samuel L. Jackson character, Jules , from the movie Pulp Fiction. In my mind, I replayed my father's reply, slighted edited, "English, Mother Fucker, do you speak it?" Now if only my father wore a Jerry Curl and was holding a 9mm the scene would have been complete.
Is it too much to expect English to be spoken at the U.S. Consulate?
posted by huja at 1:13 PM
1 Comments:
Jay, this is hilarious because I experience this here in El Salvador. Sometimes Salvadorans want me to turn off my rather proficient Spanish because of my heavy Gringo accent. In defense of the guards, they tried to speak Cantonese to be respectful - we teach all of our Embassy personnel to try to adapt to the culture that we are guests of and attempt to not be the "Ugly American".
~Robin
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