I'LL BE THE ONE DRESSED LIKE A CLOWN

One of the things that always creates stunned silence is a demonstration that the listener’s praeconceptions were entirely wrong.
A mouth falling open makes no sound.
Several years ago I regularly telephoned a customer in the South Bay about past-due invoices for services rendered by the company employing me at the time, and after dealing with the matter at hand we would exchange pleasantries and chit-chat.
All of our conversations were in Cantonese.
Well, except for complicated words like “payment terms” (付款方式), “open invoice” (應付的發票), and “wire transfer” (電匯), that is.
Reason being that I don't know those terms.

One time were both going to be at a lecture, and planned to meet for coffee afterward.
Except that we didn't know what the other person looked like at all.
After scanning the lobby for several minutes once it was over, I finally approached the likeliest looking person.

"請問, 你係唔係周小姐啊？"
['Excuse me, are you ms. Chou?]

Oops.
In three years of regular contact, I had forgotten to mention my last name.
A man with a Caucasian surname probably isn't ethnically Chinese, right?
But it had never come up, as it wasn't a necessary datum.
I had thought that my ghastly accent and limited vocabulary were a dead give-away, she assumed that I was merely a 竹升, of which there are many in San Francisco.
Once she got over her flabbergasted surprise, it was a very enjoyable meeting.
Nothing in our work relationship changed - she remained AP for our South Bay client, and I stayed AR for an enterprise providing regularly scheduled services. We still chatted once a month, and bills would be paid.
We met again at an office Christmas party, and also recognized each other once at a movie theatre.
I changed jobs since then, and though we kept sporadically in touch after that, we finally lost contact when her company moved her to Philadelphia.

I was reminded of those days when I overheard a scrap of conversation recently outside the office building.
The sentence that was uttered was: "I'll be the one dressed like a clown".

I cannot imagine a better way to be instantly recognized than that.
It's absolutely brilliant!
Failsafe.

"I'll be dressed like a clown!"

Should've thought of that myself.
It would've prevented a lot of frustration.
And we would've had much more time for coffee.


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