After a very long day of flying, I landed in Hong Kong a few hours ago. Fresh off the European vacation, my mind started to translate English phrases into French, in case I had to, you know, speak to anyone. But I quickly remembered that I was among my Chinese cousins in the motherland, so forced myself to think about foods - the only Cantonese words that make sense to me.Even though everyone speaks English, I still try to use some Cantonese when I can. After I collected my bag, I went to the information kiosk for the Regal Airport Hotel, where I'm staying tonight (adjacent to the airport) and forced out the following utterances:
[In English] Hello,
[In Cantonese] I want
[In "English"] Ree-go Air-por Ho-teww
[In Cantonese] I can walk?
It's not unusual for me to piece together some Cantonese phrases to get by, nor is it unusual for me to inflect any English words with a Chinese accent while in Hong Kong. I figure it helps with the whole communication thing. It's a sub-conscious behavior, but when I think about it, I feel like a jackass.
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2 comments:
Do you have dry lips?
When we were in France, my friend kept speaking English but in a sort of pan-European cartoon accent.
It was not helpful to the cross-cultural understandings.
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