Thursday, November 14, 2019

BAFFLING LITTLE GIRLS

Uncle Stinky Kwailo was cold. His fingers were quite blue from the frigid wind outside combined with Raynaud's phenomenon. Unkle Stinky Kwailo had just finished smoking a pipe, outside in the bitter cold, and desired some warmth and comfort. And what's this? A hospitable establishment beckoned. Uncle Stinky Kwailo went inside for a cup of hot beverage.

Oh joy.

Uncle Stinky Kwailo surprised the heck out of the little girls at a nearby table by ordering in Cantonese. As, naturally, one does when requesting kong sik naai chaa (港式奶茶) and jaa choi yiuk si ho fan (榨菜肉絲河粉).

Uncle Stinky Kwailo was not too disappointed when the owner suggested lai fan (瀨粉) instead, as they were entirely out of ho fan (河粉).
Lai fan is very similar to Chiu Chow kwee tiao (潮州粿條).
Good fried, more delicious in soup.

Uncle Stinky Kwailo was, however, disconcerted when he realized that fingers that are numb and blue, from the lack of circulation caused by Raynaud's phenomenon, had difficulty with chopsticks.


Uncle Stinkyy Kwailo cursed a blue streak under his breath, hoping that the little girls would not hear it.


It was never the less an excellent repast. My fingers had recovered by the time I went outside for another smoke, slightly over an hour since I came in. The wind had lessened, and Rainaud's did not crop up again. Late in the day there's always that bitter blowing breeze downslope from Russian Hill and Nob Hill through Chinatown and the nearby Financial District, which is made worse by the funnel effect of the buildings.



指尖變蒼白,(因為)無血液循環 。

In Chinese, Raynaud's Syndrome is 雷諾氏綜合症 ('leui nok si jung gap jing'), a name in which only the last three syllables are really intelligible, as they mean "syndrome" (綜合症 'jung gap jing'). The first three syllables are phoneticisations for "Raynaud's" and don't mean bupkes in Cantonese.
As is the case with many phonetic transcriptions.

It's also called 雷諾現象 ('leui nok yin jeung'), Raynaud's Phenomenon.

Freely cut-and-pasting from Wikipedia in Chinese:
雷諾現象是指由於血管痙攣而引起的一系列血管血流減少的情形。雷諾氏綜合症會導致指變得蒼白,隨後發紺,並常伴有麻木、疼痛。該症狀通常持續幾分鐘,但也可持續數小時。

Trust me, a medical person would have scant problem with this description,
but the rest of us might find it somewhat hard to understand.
Slapped into conversations, it's messy.

Ji-jim pin chong-baak, (yan wei) mou huet-yik cheun-waan.

Fingertips turn pale, (because of) no circulation.

It's a pain in the sphincter.




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