I think one of my biggest weaknesses is my temper, or rather that I sometimes can’t control it. I specifically blow my top at government officials and other puffed-up people in uniform, telling me what to do when it makes no sense, (“meh-dem! Tekk kee-ah! Tekk kee-ah!” (madam, take care, take care – there is a floor and it’s fraught with danger!) and I get really angry, perhaps most angry, when people openly state that I’m a total idiot.
Or rather, state that they think I’m a total idiot.
These are “issues” I obviously have to “address,” and therefore I promised myself before last weekend’s trip into the Guangdong hinterland, that no matter how patronising people were towards me, no matter with which frequency they told me that Cantonese was too difficult for me, or told me that I couldn’t eat spicy food because it had chillies, I would just laugh it off instead of getting pissed off.
I managed that to a certain degree; at least I didn’t raise my voice. But I didn’t exactly laugh either.
The main problem with 興寧(Heng Leng) five hours by train north, north-east of Shenzhen, is that although it’s Guangdong province, almost nobody speaks Cantonese. It’s a Hakka town: Established by Hakka for Hakka.
At least people spoke to each other in the local language – not surprisingly Hakka – instead of their mangled version of Mandarin. They could understand a lot of Cantonese though (too bloody right) but as I spoke, I had to suffer through that old scourge of life in Hong Kong: Addressing people in one language and being answered in another – this time garbled Mandarin. It was painful and really put me off my game. I started speaking a half Mando half Canto awful hybrid, often stopping in mid sentence to wonder what I was really saying, and where I was…
So people, if you want to practise Cantonese, stay the hell away from Heng Leng!
Anyway, the train there (apart from – horrors – having no restaurant car) specialises in torturing passengers with a never-ending stream of train staff selling stuff, socks, toothbrushes, stamps and the like, and at 3000 decibel. One guy stood in our carriage for about 30 minutes, screaming out the advantages of some smokers’ toothpaste, 5 cm from my ear.
Anyway, they did have one thing I really wanted: Crazy Light Balls. These were see-through rubber balls with a kind of sensor inside that, when the ball was bounced, started emitting really strong blue and red light rays as well as a glitter-like substance wafting around in it. I wanted it! At 10 yuan, I thought it would be steal. On the way back I wanted to buy another of these balls and couldn’t believe my luck when it, in addition to the light show and glitter, also featured a plastic fish swimming around in there.
"這是魚" (This is a fish) the uniformed woman informed me, pointing to the yellow and orange fish which every single inhabitant on this earth immediately would identify as a fish. I pointed to another ball with a slightly larger, blue and green fish in it."這都是魚嗎？"（Is this also a fish?) knowing full well that mainlanders seldom understand irony; it was more for the benefit of my friend sitting next to me.
“是！是魚!”（Yes! It’s a fish!) she beamed, holding up her thumb in appreciation of the clever foreigner that could put to and two together to such an astonishing degree.
I sank back in depression. (“Depression is anger turned inwards.”)
Safely back in Shenzhen and among Canto speakers, it was time to hit the tailor’s. When I came out of the changing room my friend had disappeared, and before I even moved my eyes to look for her, the tailor started pointing around the corner with wild, exaggerated movements. Your friend! There! There!
OK, cheers,I think I can …
She started pulling my arm, trying to drag me around the corner when I didn’t gallop to be with my fellow whitey fast enough for her liking.
“There! There!”
“Yes, I know. I can see her.” My friend was talking with three fabric-mongers, so I hung back a little, thinking I’d let her do the Canto thing by herself. This wasn’t good enough for my tailor, who rushed up to the group and started pointing at my friend from quite close up.
“Here! Here! This is her!”
“Oh, for Chr… Please. I talked to my friend three minutes ago. I still recognise her.”
I thought I was showing amazing restraint, but do realise that most people spend every day of their lives not losing their temper. Bear in mind that it was my first time, though. Well, maybe the third.
Back at the tailor’s gaff, my shirt was ready to be taken home. The tailor handed it to me in a plastic bag. “Now you can put it in your wheelie-bag,” she explained slowly and clearly, as if dealing with a particularly dense village idiot with Aspberger’s.
No, I didn’t raise my voice! A huge victory for me. But I didn’t laugh either.
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