SO STINK KWAILO! 咁臭嘅鬼佬！

The trip down to Chinatown was far less enjoyable than the dimsum enjoyed within twenty minutes of my landing there. Reason being three aunties on the bus, who all agreed that white people who smoked sure were stinky. Wow, putrid! Naturally this was all in Cantonese, and it is reasonable to assume that no one except Cantonese speakers would understand.

The overwhelming majority of white folks are manifestly not speakers of that lovely language, wherefore one can say whatever one damned well wants about the beaky-nosed middle-aged specimen with the faintest odeur of cigarillo standing nearby.

One of the ladies saw me looking right at her, and quailed a bit.
Was that the evil eye that the kwailo was casting?
Had he wigged on somehow?
Oh surely not.

Kap yin ge gwailo, wa, jan gam chau!


吸煙嘅鬼佬，哇，眞咁臭！


Keeping a straight face is worth it's weight in gold. It avoids senseless confrontation and strife. What I did NOT say was "nei gu me? Gam lou-ge tong baat-po dik suk hei-mei man hei loi ho-chi haahm yü!"

你估咩？噉老嘅唐八婆的餿氣味聞起來好似鹹魚！

I could have, but I didn't.
Even though I felt like it.

What made the subsequent snackies extra special was that while I was at Cheung Fook ordering food, the same lady who had opined that I was "SO stink!" came in, heard me talking, and promptly realized that I had actually understood what she had said on the bus. She quietly purchased a choi-yiuk bau and left, looking nearly sheet white. I can imagine her promptly getting on her cell-phone to one of her friends and wailing that the "so stink kwailo" spoke Cantonese!

It probably upset her dreadfully, though, as, in the exact same way that one normally assumes that random kwailo do not understand Tongwaa (唐話), one must equally assume that a casual remark about one's rich personal tobacco reek was not meant to hurt or intended as an insult.

What she and her friends said was, after all, private.

And I was not supposed to listen in.

Nor take it personally.

Sorry, Auntie.



FURTHER ADVENTURES OF 'SO STINK KWAILO'

After finishing my lunch I wandered around for a while smoking a pipe, ending up on Jackson Street under the awning of a defunct jewelry store observing passing pedestrians. When two darling little girl-tykes waved at me, I waved back. It seemed to enchant them. Later I read for an hour at City Lights, before going over to Pacific for tea.

Inside the eatery a middle aged woman examined how her new clothes fit in the mirror, while over at another table a young Hong Kong type was busily forking in 榨菜牛肉飯 while intently reading his e-mails and text messages.
An elderly rapscallion entered and cheerfully hollered at a friend "wow, you still aren't dead yet!

你重未死！

Afterwards while heading toward Portsmouth Square with a second pipe going, a little toddler came right up to me and stared in wide-eyed wonder.
I tried conversing with her, to the great amusement of her grandparents, but she just beamed at me. Never-the-less I feel that communication was established.

"So-stink Kwailo" is rather a decent sort.


Note-to-self: do NOT continue smoking the cigarillo once you see the bus turn the corner at the top of the hill, but discard it immediately.
Otherwise the smell will linger, and well-bred Chinese females of all ages will wrinkle their little button noses in disgust.
The bus to C'town is full of them.




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