WHITE PEOPLE ALL LOOK ALIKE AND ASK STRANGE QUESTIONS

Yeah, I'll admit it. I like hanging out ('hiding') in Chinatown. For one thing, no one there treats me like a weirdo, as folks everywhere else seem to do. Smiling middle-aged dude with a lot of curiosity about things that other folks have no interest in whatsoever? That's absolutely normal in Chinatown. Heck, you cannot possibly get any more normal than that.
Even if someone is actually paying attention.
Which largely they aren't.

White guys are a background issue.

It's surprising how anonymous one is in the neighborhood. Except perhaps to the people with whom you have dealt before. Provided, of course, that you did so while speaking Cantonese; Chinatown folks will remember the Caucasian who spoke Cantonese. Probably because they never heard the language so thoroughly mispronounced and maltreated.

"What did he say?" "Something about jook or bamboo, but I'm not sure." "He wants jook? It's gotta be jook, we don't HAVE any bamboo!" Yeah, rice porridge then, but I didn't understand a damn thing else." "Well why don't you ask him to repeat it, maybe he'll speak better this time?" "Possibly, or else he'll bark something totally incomprehensible."
"You're right. Better ask him to point."
"In WHAT language?!?"

"Ask him to point in Esperanto."

It's not entirely that bad, but while I can read the language pretty decently, having a conversation past the food please cup of gong sik naai cha yit ge m-koi hotsauce and where and when did I grow up what do I do beancounter oh you smoke a pipe yin tau fascinating how much does good pipe tobacco cost and where do you live level without recourse to English is often impossible.

Ninety percent of the words I know how to write, I have never heard spoken. Or at least not that I recall. My reading vocabulary is far greater than my spoken vocabulary. So the tone thing remains an issue. Beyond a certain point, context does not really clarify what weird white dudes say.

But from my point of view, that isn't really a problem. Not only is pointing in Esperanto always an option -- hey the waitress just bust outta the kitchen with a trolley filled with steamed good stuff over here over here here here wave frantically while looking famished and desperate I'll have some of those and those and those -- but if something really needs to be communicated, the locals are determined to do it.


刷

Which explains why with few exceptions, most commercial signage utilizes a vocabulary that everyone knows, and words that crop up with enough frequency that you cannot fail to clearly remember them.
And you may always ask.
Wei, ah sin-sang, go-tou dai sei go ji, dim tok ah?
Eh, mister, how is that fourth word pronounced?

Turns out its 'chaat'.

[As in 印刷. Yan-chaat; printing. There's an establishment on Waverly between Hang Fook (幸福) and Tung Fong Sam Yung Yek Hong (東方蔘茸藥行). Which is a good place to buy your herbs, by the way. 藥 is also spelled 葯.]

I already knew what it meant, but had never heard it before.
With a bit of luck I'll remember the tone.
For when I need it again.


That approach failed only once. The mister whom I questioned did not know either.

衆

A multitude, the masses, public. The range of meaning was clear from previous exposure, and I found out later that it's pronounced 'jung'.
No idea whatsoever what the tone is.
If I ever need to use it, I'll just fake it, hoping that context will clarify.
Or write it on a sheet of paper and hold it over my head.


If you ever see a pipesmoking dude in Chinatown with actual talk-balloons, that will be me. Feel free to engage me in conversation. Please bring your own pen and paper, I might not have enough.



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