I was brought up in a Cantonese/Hokkien dialect speaking family, that is why I don’t speak Mandarin very well. I couldn’t read nor write them neither - and this pretty much includes my own Chinese name. It’s a shame… I know, but I’m sure there are plenty more people like me out there. A banana dude — yellow outside, white inside.

I’m about to relate a couple of embarrassing incidents that took place during my trip to China a few years ago

Incident #1
I was approached by a Chinese tour guide (let’s call her - CindyCrawford) about something. When CindyCrawford came up to me, I had just descended from a climb up to The Great Wall. It was a very cold afternoon *The conversation was reproduced based on my memory and limited knowledge on Mandarin, slight discrepancies are expected*:

CindyCrawford : “Ching wen … xiang mien hai you mei you ren?”
(translation: Excuse me, is it still cold up there?) — as per what I understand from the description.

Me : “errr… uuhh… yeah… xiang mien ‘quite’ ren …”
(translation: errr…uhhhh … yeah .. it’s quite cold up there..) — That was my half assed Mandarin. I was rather surprised, it’s fucking cold down here, for sure it would be colder up in the mountains. Maybe she just wanted to start a conversation, I thought.

CindyCrawford :[confused look] “Ni you mei you kan tau tha men ? [some sign language] .. ren?”
(translation: You seen them? Cold?) — Oh, she’s probably asking me if I’m cold … awww.. how sweet of her…

Me :”Oh… yeah… xiang mien hen ren … [show her a shaking hand sign]… xie xie”
(translation: Oh..yeah.. it’s very cold up there… thanks) — it was about 5 deg C up there. It’s fucking cold.

CindyCrawford : “Pu se .. wo se wen ni… ni you mei you kan tau tha men .. [pointing at tour bus .. then camera]?”
(translation: No, I’m asking you, have you seen them [pointing at tour bus .. then camera]) — something is not right. She was not asking me if I’m cold.

Shit, that was when I saw where did it all go wrong… She was actually asking if I have seen those people from my tour group, and whether they are still all up in the mountains. I apparently mistaken the word “ren” as COLD instead of PEOPLE. So, the whole thing was a boo-boo. She wasn’t concerned about my welfare after all. Fuck. It was downright embarrassing. I replied her back in a broken Mandarin (& plenty of sign language) that ‘those bastards are still climbing the fucking steep Great Wall, and The Great Wall sucks’.

Incident #2
Inside the tour bus:

Tourguide : “announcing through loudspeaker] “Wo men xien cai yau chue kan cak cik.”
(translation: we now are going to watch fried chicken) — again, as per what I understand from the description

Me :”What the fuck!? We are going to watch fried chicken??? What’s so different about frying chickens in China???”

My comments triggered a commotion of hysterical laughs from the entire tour group.

Again, the word “cak cik” the tour guide meant was ACROBATIC PERFORMANCE. I mistaken it as FRIED CHICKEN. Apparently, ‘fried chicken’ is pronounced as chaaaaa cheeeeeee .. the vowels are pronounced longer. To me, it sounded all the same.

For example, stars .. is called “xing xing” … which also shares the same pronunciation for gorilla & faith. Pardon me but, the meaning for all the 3 words here are all very different from each other, and it would be catastrophic to make any mistake on that

But then, ironically, it is part of my job nature to deal with Taiwanese suppliers almost everyday… and I don’t have any problem in communicating with them at all. Apparently, they could understanding the word “fuck” very well, and I guess that’s all it takes for them to understand a scolding or two.

Back from Hong Kong on 24th.

The trip was awesome, despite the fact that some part of the trip weren’t really that enjoyable. The part I was talking about was the China tour on the 2nd day till 4th day.

1) Emily & I was the only young couple there - the rest of the 2 couples were old beings. Hell they were so irritating. One was a prick & the other a nagger - who talks really fast. I had to wolf down plenty of paracetamol tablets in order to withstand their screwed up attitude. Goddamn.

2) The people from China are rude. They have hygiene problems - couldn’t build a proper toilet. And their food sucks + dirty. Out of the 6 pax from our group, 5 got serious purging after consuming the food there. I’m the only one who didn’t get the poisoning. I think I’m tough. :PbPb

3) The road works in China are a turn off. Although I can say I’m seriously concerned about the number of potholes on our Malaysian roads but, it was not really that when compared to those I encountered at Shenzen & Guangzhou. Taking a car or any road vehicle there is like riding a horse with parkinson’s disease. Car sick is the national past time on the road there.

4) Stuck at immigration for 1.5 hours at China-Macau border just because the immigration computers didn’t sync properly - our visa info was ok when we entered China but the information was not found when we’re leaving from the other side of the country. It was like scanning your Touch n Go from the northern highway and when you reach Jelapang, the fucking system beeps an error telling you that no info was found on your card. China was such a screw up country - on that day.

Coupled with all these cons and hot weather, it made our China trip really dull & boring. Macau was ok - not much place to go except the casino.

The free & easy trip at Hong Kong was totally different. The city is scintillating with life and vibrant. The night scene from Victoria Peak was amazing. Skyscrapers so close together and there were lights everywhere. Our Petronas towers are like 2 chopsticks sticking out from a bowl of rice, and Hong Kong is like having 365 arrows sticking out from Milla Jovovich’s flat chest - big difference. Favorite past time there would be shopping. We shopped from Mongkok to Causeway Bay and Emily was out of control when she saw so many SALE signs all over the place. I had serious aching on my legs from these concrete jungle trekking. Bought lots of stuffs. Emily bought a few handbags for her sisters, and some designer clothes for herself. I got myself a pair of my dream Timberland shoes (the model which I’ve been droolling for so long in Penang).

Images taken with Nikon SQ.

And yeah, we also visited Ocean Park. It was a fun place to be - for kids. The roller coaster got my brain tangled with some part of my colon - felt so fucking sick after the ride. The only thing I enjoyed there was the cable car ride & the dolphin show. The place was simply too full of China tourists and trust me, nobody wants to get near those bunch of wild people.

There were so many wonderful experiences & places I had visited which I’m not able to cover in this entry. It was beyond what I can describe. (ok… maybe it’s because I’m freakin’ lazy)

But there are some downside about Hong Kong - food there was not that good compared to Malaysia. They are very expensive and not appetizing at all. The best thing I ever had at Hong Kong was the RM90 Thai food buffet at Causeway Bay - which didn’t even taste like Thai food. Not spicy enough.

Overall, I can say that I enjoyed my vacation to the fullest this time. China trip was boring yes, but still, it wasn’t really that bad as I didn’t have to see Rob’s face for the whole week. I believe if it weren’t for the screwed up China trip, I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself so much in Hong Kong. Sort of accentuated Hong Kong as the better half of the trip.