I Get My Kicks Above the Waistline, Sunshine
Welcome to “One Night in Bangkok” the series. Follow me through Hong Kong and Bangkok while I act as my Rotary Club‘s delegate to the International Convention in Thailand, with posts that are titled from the lyrics of the song “One Night in Bangkok.” If this is your first visit to the series, please click here to begin at the beginning.
Dear Cayleigh:
By now, you are on your way to Scotland with your dad and your grandparents. Hearing what you think of that windswept landscape, so much a part of who you are, makes me wish away time until you can describe it to me. And, we can giggle. I love acting like a nine-year-old girl with a lovely nine-year-old girl like you.
I know you will fit in there better than I do in Hong Kong. In spite of your multiple attempts to teach me how to say hello, to introduce myself, to say ANYTHING in Mandarin, I am hopeless. My dim brain remembers none of it. I can see the intensity etched in your freckled face as you schooled me in Chinese, can even hear the patience in your voice, but all the rest of it fled.
The best thing about being here is that you are everywhere. When I see Chinese characters, I wonder what you’d think of them, how many you’d be able to read to me. I see stooped, gnarled women and fish squirming in dying juices in the market pan, inhale the bloody scent of the open air butcher shop, listen to the opus of unusual sounds ringing in my ears.
Until then, I took some pictures for you to try to read someday.
Neon. These signs are everywhere.
They fire a gun for charity every day at this spot. I thought the contrast of color and character was pretty.
A nod to my readers, who will surely get a kick out of the mistranslated word.
Kicks above the waistline, and collections of cum recyclables….FANTASTIC!!!
I will probably figure out how to get this thing to publish at the time I want by the time I have to come home.
I knew some of you would love that last one.
Indeed, some of us did.
see, Angie would probably even have loved our dirty espresso banter from the other day too! :p
dim brain or dim sum?! That is the question!
I want to know what the word is that got mistranslated! I guess you got to get that stuff collected and recycled for good somehow…
I just laughed and laughed and laughed.
I don’t think that stuff should be recycled.
I don’t either, Roxanne.
omg. hahaha
And, on the other hand…..
Your letters to the young people in your life are lovely little gems. I hope they will all treasure them and save them to be re-read over and over again. A 9-year old who reads Mandarin . . . really?
Love your description of the market and it’s scents and sounds.
Cayleigh is taking Mandarin in school, and she has quite a proclivity for it. She asked me to bring her some things from Hong Kong for that purpose, and I am happy to oblige.
Ouch. I don’t know if I want my sperm bank to be that… um… open. Recycling of that kind should happen, you know, in private.
Hahahahahahaha!!!!!
This is a sweet post, Andra. Cayleigh is a lucky girl for knowing you and I think vice versa.
You are a naughty girl, btw… esp. for a Rotarian President.
Cayleigh is like my niece. I’m very lucky to have her in my life. Her mother may not think Cayleigh lucky to have me in hers after the last photo, but we can fix it all up before Cayleigh sees it.
Dang, lady, do the peeps who voted you Prez have access to this blog? Never did I guess it was hip or cool to be a Rotar, but you have me re-thinking. Recycling to the nth degree in HK ~
Some of my Rotary friends read the blog. Some don’t. Maybe the cool ones do. *wink*
Rotary is an awesome organization. I am proud to be part of a global group that does so much good in the world.
*wink, wink*
Of course, you are the coolest of the cool, Lou.
Hope I never have to wait until somebody has made their deposit…..
Helen, that is hilarious.
Fun pics and love the message to Cayleigh, she is a gem.
She is going to have a blast in Scotland. I begged her to go to the tippy top of St. Paul’s while in London. I think telling her about the peephole in the floor above the dome convinced her to do it.
How green. Recycle everything…
It seems that way…….
Lovely post, and LOL for the misspelled word.
I laughed out loud, Lisa. It was so funny.
What a gorgeous post. Cayleigh’s flight isn’t until this afternoon so I showed it to her before she left. Her response:” Ni Hao (Hello). Thank you so much for the nice post I could read a few of the characters. I can’t wait to show you things from Scotland! Love Cayleigh”
Ah ha! Now I remember the hello word and how it sounds……..Please let me know when they get there.
This is like postcards from the blogo -spehere, and a wonderful one at that for Cayleigh. Your humor and wit always shine through, Andra, as do your tenderness and caring, especially for the young folks in your life.
It’s a good thing her mother won’t kill me for combining the funny for my readers with the tender post for her daughter………..
That poor unfortunate bin is the victim of a Latin-to-English-to-Mandarin-to-English game of the suddenly ironically named “Chinese Whispers.”
“Cum” from the Latin, used to indicate something which serves two purposes, ie: litter and recycling bin, only, man, is that a hilarious screw up…
I remembered the word ‘cum’ from my distant Latin, and I figured that’s what it was supposed to mean. But, dang. It was just too funny not to use.
I’m enjoying my trip with you.
Love the pictures and your lovely interest in people, places and things.
Years ago (when I was in my 30′s) I wanted a country belt (you know the ones that spell your name on the back?) but I wanted to misspell country on purpose (you know what I mean). I’ve never understood what truly makes that a bad word since most men absolutely LOVE those things (er, maybe love isn’t the correct word?). Anyway, I digress.
OMG, Lori. That is hysterical. You should get the belt now.
A friend of mine who was in a fraternity used to get pissed when we said frat and his big comeback is “You wouldn’t call your country a…”
A particularly horrible comeback because we would indeed call our country that.
Haha.
Bahaha! Hope you and Cayleigh are both enjoying your exotic ports of call. I’d prefer Scotland, I’m sure, with its windswept moors.
Her grandparents are Scottish but have lived in Toronto for a long time. Going back there with them is such an awesome opportunity for her.
Bahaha = Mandarin for Bwahaha!
It was pretty funny.
Mandarin wouldn’t really do you much good in Hong Kong anyway; it’s all Cantonese there except in business contexts!
I could read some of that once upon a time… Not so much now.
Thank you for telling me that, Annabelle. I will have to make sure the character dictionary I buy for her is the right one.
Love this letter to Cayleigh. Made me think of the movie Lost in Translation… maybe Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson would consider a sequel in China.
MTM thinks it is really different from Japan, but I have no point of reference. He still banged his head on the roof of the tram yesterday.
Oh, I love this post. It’s so sweet.
At the same time I can appreciate your struggle to learn Mandarin, as I associate it with my efforts to conquer Thai and Vietnamese. I was hopeless. Simply hopeless. I thought I was farily good with languages until I got to Asia and tried untangle the sounds of words that were more vowel than consonant. My Vietnamese friends laughed at me mercilessly sometimes. I can only imagine what I must have sounded like.
Good luck, my friend! Talk on————–
Hugs,
Kathy
Kathy, any of these languages have to be next to impossible because we have no real reference point for starting. I admire you for trying. Thai looks even more intimidating to me, because all of the squiggly lines look exactly the same.
HaHaHa! You are going to have many communication challenges. What a wonderful opportunity! Debra
Everyone we’ve encountered so far speaks English. Thankfully.
Now if you combine that with your F0ck book from the other day…
I would have had a hard time not getting a picture of myself with that sign. The mind boggles at what I might have done. No wonder they don’t let me travel much.
Loving your pictures and travel tales – but I know the characters you are finding for your books are going to be even better.
I wondered what you’d make of it.
Are you feeling better?
Feeling much better, thank you. I actually think the pain meds they gave me made me feel worse. Not taking that stuff anymore.
Feel free to bring back strange and exotic herbal remedies from the Orient!
Seem to be enjoying the, hum… Sites.
These kinds of things crack me up.
Andra- Those pics and signs are comical! Love seeing these! Jealous you’re in Bangkok! That menu reminds me of an Alsatian menu on the French-German border that advertised a very strictly translated dish of “very, very smelly curdled cheese”.
haha!
I am sure I would translate anything abominably, Tricia, but that one took the cake.
Lovely post and I get to travel with you! Jealous though…loved the translations!
I just couldn’t resist the one, Susan.