What Did That White Lady Say?
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: In Reykjavik, Iceland, where it is, as I write this, 26F, with a windchill of 12F. Three inches of snow fell yesterday.
When we left Bangkok, the daily highs were in the low-mid 90s, with a heat index of about 100.
We were released from quarantine on Wednesday, and are having more than a little weather whiplash.
What did that white lady say?
At our last meal in Bangkok, which was in the restaurant of our (very western) hotel, I tried (yet again) to order a bottled water in Thai.
I can say exactly four things in Thai: hello, thank you, yes, & bottled water (er, sort of). I use those four phrases as often as possible, and I always tack ‘ka’ onto the end, as a mark of respect. I’m chronically pleased with myself for knowing to do that, throwing it around like I’m someone who actually knows how to speak properly. Now, Thai is a tonal language, meaning there are five ways to pronounce each vowel. The differences are subtle (very subtle, to a western ear). But change the tone, and you have a completely different word.
So I ordered my bottled water with unjustifiable confidence. I received ... a whole coconut.
It happens all the time. Toby, who we’ve always known is some kind of language savant, taught me to order bottled water by saying ‘nam plao.’ I practiced it with his girlfriend. When Toby says it, we get water. When I say it, everything comes to a grinding halt. Servers, who want only to please, look at me with panic. You can almost hear the wheels turning in their brains—Oh no! She’s trying Thai! What are we going to do? Make it stop! Quick—somebody figure out what the crazy white lady’s trying to say!
Vietnam is even worse, because the alphabet is mostly the same as ours (which is deceptive), but with some added diacritical marks to indicate the tones. Of which there are, for the record, a whopping eight.
Now, Vietnamese coffee is, in my opinion, one of the wonders of the world. There are coffee shops everywhere, on every block, often multiples. They mostly sell one thing: coffee. There are a number of variations—plain, with condensed milk, hot, iced. Sometimes (especially in the north) egg yolk is an option; I thought it was meh, but some people love it. Condensed milk, though? You take that rich, almost chocolatey Vietnamese bean, grind it fresh, and drip it through an individual metal filter into a puddle of sweet, sticky canned milk, and the resulting beverage is truly the stuff of fantasies. Add some ice, and you have the ultimate antidote to Saigon’s relentless heat: rocket fuel.
The first time we went to Vietnam, I fell so hard in love with that coffee, that it seemed obvious I should learn to order it in Vietnamese. It’s written cà phê sữa đá. In places that had a menu, or a board on the wall, I could see the word, right there in front of me. Cà phê sữa đá. Every single day for two months, we walked into a coffee shop—many, many coffee shops—and I ordered cà phê sữa đá.
Not once was I understood. Not one single time. Without exception, the person behind the cash register, whether we were in a hipster coffee shop with mood lighting and distressed concrete floors, or some hole-in-the-wall place above a shophouse that had been there for fifty years, looked at me as if I were speaking gibberish. Which, realistically, I probably was.
But, I mean, these were coffee shops. Like, what else could I have been saying? That was five years ago, and I’m still completely flummoxed by by my total inability to communicate just this one simple thing.
It didn’t slow me down, though—I’m nothing if not persistent. Languages? Bring ‘em. Watch me try.
In Latin America, I was certain that one Spanish class I took to fulfill a graduate school requirement would hold me in good stead. I waded right in, butchering words right and left.
One I threw around a lot was Entiendo? I said it all the time, when I was struggling to communicate. I’d cobble together a few words that I thought loosely approximated the concept I was trying to get across, and then say Entiendo? I was trying to ask—do you understand? Is my Spanglish making sense?
I was actually saying, “I understand.” For nine and a half months, I wandered through South and Central America, telling people I understood. Which, of course, I never did.
Buying slippers—always a challenge—became something of a comedy in Uruguay. At one point, I actually uttered the following:
You know, las cosas para los pietons. Pero, no zapatas. Entiendo?
Now, in case you don’t speak Spanish, that roughly translates as “You know, things for feet. But not shoes. I understand?”
If you do speak Spanish, stop laughing. I can hear you.
When we landed in Iceland, the first thing I did was ask my very kind wheelchair assistant how to say thank you in Icelandic. Note: I had looked it up before we arrived, but I wanted to hear her pronunciation. It’s takk. She very kindly taught me how to add something that is roughly written as fyrir (but which sounds more like fithish, I think).
The immigration officer was quite gruff, grilling us on our transit through Europe. It was, as all immigration interactions are right now (for me at least—my lawyer spouse is far less flustered by cranky people in uniforms) a little stressful. But then I said the magic word—takk fishithisthfythingy—and he beamed at me. I’m not kidding, y’all; his smile transformed the entire interaction.
The thing is, my bumbling language abilities, while they may not communicate what I intend, never fail to communicate something even more important: I’m trying. I’m happy to be here, thank you for having me, I see and respect your culture.
I stand by my belief that it is better to try and fail, no matter how egregiously, than to not try at all. On the rare occasion when I nail it (my Thai yes is actually passable, I think), the recipient lights up with smiles. Embarrassment is fleeting, but good will is worth every misordered coconut.
From my writer’s notebook:
I’m sorry to say that, since my college study-abroad days, I haven’t really given Switzerland a lot of thought. It’s one of those places that I think, oh, we’ll get back there one day, when we run out of more interesting places. But during our layover last week, I was struck by the hospitality and—well, wealth of the country. This made sense, given what I know about Switzerland’s place in the global art market: namely, that it’s a country of collectors.
It’s also home to some of the world’s most famous free ports, particularly those that specialize in art storage. A free port, or free trade zone, is a physical space that falls outside the tax/customs jurisdiction of any country. So if you buy an expensive painting in, say, Los Angeles, load it up on your private plane, and whisk it out of the US, you won’t have to pay taxes on it. Taking it to a free port means you won’t have to pay customs tax on it for any other country, either.
The Geneva free port is the oldest and largest in the world, but due its role in international art crime and antiquities smuggling in recent years, laws governing transparency and control have been tightened—to what degree of effectiveness is unclear, though.
Couple the free ports with Switzerland’s historic neutrality, the local passion for art, and the country’s historic role in finance and banking, and you have the makings of a great story.
Plus there’s chocolate.
Take care,
Lisa
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