I dial 07 for 24-hour Room Service. A woman answers, greets me in Chinese.
“Good afternoon. Can you speak English?”
Giggles on other end. Phone is passed to a male person. “Good afternoon!”
“Yes, good afternoon. Can I order for room service please?”
More nervous giggles from other end. Phone is passed to another woman. I hear an exchange of Chinese words, and can imagine the phone receiver being tossed about like a hot potato.
“Yes, may I help you?” She speaks with heavy accent but I understand it.
“Yes I would like to order Yangzhou fried rice, please.”
“Yes.”
“And can you send me some soy sauce please?”
“Uhhh… sui sous?”
“Soy sauce.” I say it slow and clear this time.
“Yes… sui sous.”
“Thank you.” I cross my fingers and hope for the best.
“Yes. Thank you.” Click.
Twenty minutes later, I get my Yangzhou fried rice (which comes with a bowl of soup, nice touch!) and … a bowl of dried chilli in oil — that was my sauce on the side. No “sui sous.” Oh well, not too much of a tragedy. I had been through worse. I am split about this language thing, I swing between admiration and irritated awe as a visitor in a foreign land… particularly for front-line workers in the tourism/service industry.
Which reminded me of this forwarded email re: “Teenjeewberrymuds.” I paste the email here:
To get the full effect, this should be read aloud. You will understand what ‘tenjewberrymuds’ means by the end of the conversation. The following is a telephone exchange between a hotel guest and room-service, at a hotel in Asia, which was recorded and published in the Far East Economic Review:
Room Service (RS): “Morrin. Roon sirbees.”
Guest (G): “Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service.”
RS: “Rye..Roon sirbees..morrin! Jewish to oddor sunteen??”
G: “Uh..yes..I’d like some bacon and eggs.”
RS: “Ow July den?”
G: “What??”
RS: “Ow July den?…pryed, boyud, poochd?”
G: “Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please.”
RS: “Ow July dee baykem? Crease?”
G: “Crisp will be fine.”
RS : “Hokay. An Sahn toes?”
G: “What?”
RS:”An toes. July Sahn toes?”
G: “I don’t think so.”
RS: “No? Judo wan sahn toes??”
G: “I feel really bad about this, but I don’t know what ‘judo wan sahn toes’ means.”
RS: “Toes! toes!…Why jew don juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we bodder?”
G: “English muffin!! I’ve got it! You were saying ‘Toast.’ Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine.”
RS: “We bodder?”
G: “No…just put the bodder on the side.”
RS: “Wad?”
G: “I mean butter…just put it on the side.”
RS: “Copy?”
G: “Excuse me?”
RS: “Copy…tea…meel?”
G: “Yes. Coffee, please, and that’s all.”
RS: “One Minnie. Scramah egg, crease baykem, Anglish moppin we bodder on sigh and copy….rye??”
G: “Whatever you say.”
RS: “Tenjewberrymuds.”
G : “You’re very welcome.”
(P.S. Thanks to Upeng for forwarding this email… and to whoever originally wrote this!)
Hahaha… nangyayari din ‘yan sa’kin sa Cambodia!!!! So how was the fried rice? Grabe… I want to eat that with the sui sous!!!!
Toe! Hahaha! At least in Cambodia, I was able to speak some Khmer and get by! The fried rice was not that great, it just happened to be the only thing on the room service menu that seemed to have the least bits of red meat that I needed to toss to the side. Next time, am going to bring my own sui sous!
wan, tu, tree, pfor, payb, sik!
hahaha and that is so FUNNY!!!!!
and how ever I still manage to understand them… hahaha…