THE SQUAWKING LIFE

When Daniel from Green Hills Electric called, something indicated that he wasn't a real person. The phone number had been flagged as "possible spam call", number one. The mechanical clicks, number two. The heavy nearly unintelligible Indian accent, number three. Well, actually a real human, but in his real life probably not 'Daniel'. Unless, perhaps, he was a South Indian Christian. In which case he and I have a lot in common. We're both male. We both have a name with resonance in Scripture. And we both speak, more or less, English. But I answered him in Cantonese and kept him on line for five minutes.
I thoroughly enjoyed the call.

In some ways I'm a real asshole.

Laura, who had called earlier to remind me of the time I asked her to call me about funeral expenses, reacted less kindly to my speaking Cantonese at her. She asked several times how old I was, and when I told her that she was a very silly woman (你係個好傻嘅女人 'nei hai go hou so ge neui yan') repeatedly, and that I did not wish to speak with her, hung up in exhasperation. Judging by her trustworthy educated British accent, she should have been able to understand me -- her type queened it up over the Crown Colony for over a century, there were hordes of them near Connaught Road -- so I was eloquently surprised at her dullness, but maybe she didn't wigg on because of context. No one expects to phone someone about funeral expenses and hear snarky Cantonese.

The subject demands gravitas and gloomy seriousness! Perhaps I should have tried an African language which I don't speak. Twi, for instance: U ngu kwase u bumen kpishi!

In point of fact, I have never asked anyone to call me about funeral expenses.

To quote Monty Python: "I'm not dead yet, I feel fine. I think I'll go for a walk now".


你係個好傻嘅女人！


One the whole, I prefer spam from Daniel. Despite Laura's plummy accent, which is similar to mine when I'm speaking English, I've heard people exactly like her far too often being worse assholes than I am to get along very well with her type. Also, in her case, the accent is due to hard work at sounding like she's better than her original environment, and there's just that edge to it which suggests a familiarity with fry-ups, baked beans from a tin, and room temperature Wattney's Red Barrel.

Not my class, Darling. I come from frikandel, sambal, and a spot of oude genever with a Glorie van Java cigar. It's an entirely different background. I'm not saying it's better (or worse, heaven forbid), but Daniel at least knows how to cook food with flavour, and ablutes himself regularly, whereas you probably have wanky plumbing and consequently go several days without a decent bath in your small drafty flat in Hoxton.
Even with good plumbing.

Your people get drunk in Lan Kwai Fong and act disgracefully. I've drunk whisky with chaps like Daniel at rough Korean bars on Geary Street. He's actually a very decent fellow, even though professionally I would not share my personal data with him.


My cell-phone is a device which allows Indians to mis-communicate with me.
Or rather, me to completely non-communicate with Indians.
A miraculous device in many ways.



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