PERHAPS THE AMPHIBIAN IS CHINESE

Sometimes one suspects that a very bored person cruising the internet late at night has lighted upon one's lotus leaf and is thinking of shooting out his tongue to snap one's fly. Okay, frog. A bored frog.
This metaphor isn't working, forgive me.

However, that bored frog seems to be dwelling on past essays, and I think perhaps I can detect a thematic link to the various post he or she is reading here. The essays in question are all from 2015, and all contain reference to the Cantonese, their behaviour, and their language.


SCENES OF HEART RENDING DESPAIR AND TRAGEDY!
Oct 8, 2015
A post more or less in praise of womanhood; loud, disruptive, and single minded. As represented by someone acting out all the best scenes of a tearjerker soap opera, such as you might watch by yourself one rainy evening on the telly while snarfing noodles in your underwear.

HI JACKIE
Oct 7, 2015
Response to a correspondent from Hong Kong. This piece is more than usually gibberant, and foreign terms are flung all over. Including mention of Vincente Minneli and Old Dark Fired.
I suspect that Jackie might be a teenager, and grumpy old fossils such as myself seldom communicate with people like that. We jump out of the shadows yelling, and they run away in a panic.
Quite unreasonable.

I DO NOT SMELL BAD!
Jun 17, 2015
Many refined old Chinese biddies are convinced that bearded white men are a putrid smelling lot. My apartment mate, on the other hand, while she acknowledges that I am sometimes a bit smoky around the edges, has opined that many elderly Asian women smell like old dried fish.
She's Cantonese herself, and in a position to know.
No, I shan't ask how she knows.

However, since becoming aware of a pattern of revulsion on the part of dessicated female relics heading into Chinatown from my neighborhood on the other side of the hill, I take pains not to board the bus if I've just had a smoke, lest some nasty antique auntie detect the whiff of tobacco and wail, faint, turn green, pee herself, or start loudly commenting about evil kwailo, wah, gam lan ge, chuen baang lan chau, yin hei fan tin, ayaaaa!
[惡鬼佬，咁爛嘅，葾崩爛臭，煙氣燻天！]


The person scoping out my blog, if it's all one reader rather than several coincidentals, is probably of Chinese derivation. And may be wondering how nuts I really am. Trust me, I am relatively sane.
My voices tell me so.


AFTERTHOUGHT

My apartment mate's boyfriend, given how sensitive he is to even the ghost of a hint of a whisper of smoke near where his food was prepared several hours before he even tastes it (please see this post: The Kitchen Caper) most likely was a neurotic old Chinese lady in a previous life.
Maybe even a snooty dame from Shanghai or Taiwan.

He has no beard, and does not touch tobacco.
I feel these are personal failings of his.


Old dried fish.



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