I was in a meeting with a couple of my suppliers today. They were here to have some performance related discussions with me pertaining their products. One of them, was a lady from China – and I was suppose to brief her about some of the key metrics.
The problem was, she was not proficient in English. That means, I had only 2 ways to communicate with her
1) sign language
2) speak lousy Mandarin
Since I didn’t know any sign language, I had no choice but to speak to her in my shitty Mandarin.
I set off by presenting a few charts and shit – using my Mandarin and some mix of languages. I wasn’t doing good when I found out that the lady actually spoke Cantonese – which was a relief for me, because I can speak Cantonese quite well.
So I conveniently switched the talking to Cantonese instead, and the presentation went on quite smoothly. In fact, I got too comfortable doing it in Cantonese that I had a slip of mouth. Here’s how it happened,
Vendor : “Lei hai kong …. koh ko keh sou mok?”
(translation : “Are you referring to that number?”)
Me : “Mm hai… ngo hai kong ley ngoi yat ko…”
(translation : “No… I am referring to the other one…”)
Vendor : “Oh… kam… tiko leh?”
(translation : “Oh… like that… then what about this?”
Me : “Mm sai thai lor… kam siu…”
(translation : “You can ignore that… the number’s too small, it’s negligible…”)
Vendor : “Oh… kei siu aa?”
(translation : “Oh… how small?”)
Me : “Koh ko?”
(translation : “That one?”)
Vendor : “Hai…”
(translation : “Vagina” … kidding… she responded “Yes”)
Me : “Siew ko yee sap ke ceh… TIUUUUUU”
(translation : “It’s only less than twenty… FUCK…”)
Alright, if you did not notice what happened, I actually said “FUCK” in Cantonese at the end of my sentence. TIU = FUCK (in Cantonese). I usually add a ‘TIU’ at the end of each sentence in my daily colloquial conversation, to make the remark more sarcastic. Ask my friend Kancil Killer, who frequently joins me for lunch, and he’ll tell you how much this word ‘TIU’ comes up in our conversation.
But not this. It was not suppose to happen. This was suppose to be a formal meeting with my supplier, and needless to say, maintaining our professionalism is utmost important. This blunder… this… this… TIU, man… really slipped out of my mouth because of my bad habit. When I realized what I said, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. I was suppressing myself real hard… until I had to excuse myself from the meeting room to laugh outside like a retard.
Damn… I wonder what has happened to me. I think I should cuss less nowadays to avert this from worsening. Fucking hell.. (oops)