Vickiepedia

I always thought I was one of those super-cool, mega-flexible, multi-cultural type of people. The truth is, I’ve been affected by my culture much more than I cared to admit. The truth is, one simple question Western people ask one another daily would stump me.

“How are you?”

I can’t really speak for the rest of the Hong Kongers, but generally speaking, unless you know the person personally and haven’t seen them for quite a bit, you don’t ask them how they are. Cashiers say hi, they don’t ask how you are. Neighbours don’t necessarily know one another; they say hi if they’re particularly friendly, they don’t ask how you are.

“How are you?”

I feel like crap. I’m stressed. I’m loaded with Uni assignment. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m PMS-ing. I have period cramps. “Good! How are you?”

People! Please listen to me! “Definately” is definitely not the proper spelling of definitely; “mispelling” is a misspelling; “alot” is the mistake a lot of people make; you never do something “for awhile” for a while; “could of”, “would of” and “should of” should have been could have, would have and should have; “alright” is not all right; “anyways” should not be used in any way, anyway! Ugh! Separate; grammar; embarrass. Their, thief; believe, receive; quite, quiet… Informality is awesome; but no!

Eh, but who am I, really? *activates self-defence mechanism*

Lecturer: Remember, no sandals or thongs in practical classes. Everything must be covered up.
Vickie (only half paying attention, suddenly alert): But… how do you even know if somebody is wearing a thong?!
Girl next to Vickie: Erm, thong shoes, maybe?

Oh. Ohhhh!

Embarrassing events (which all happened to be language-related) of Vickie in descending order, less embarrassing first.

(5) I once mispronounced “pretentious” as pre-TEN-tee-ous instead of pre-TEN-cious when I was angry. What sound argument. </sarcasm>

(4) When some of my ex-classmates asked what “plagiarism” meant and how it was pronounced, and in order to prove to them that the English pronunciation was really easy, I broke the syllables into play-gee-AIR-rism by mistake, when I knew the word should be pronounced as PLAY-jar-rism. I sincerely hope that they’ve completely forgotten that word now.

(3) I once said clutches when I meant crutches. “Clutches?” “Yes, clutches.” In a formal presentation.

(2) I never knew lasagne was not pronounced as la-SAHG-na, until I said it out loud in front of 3 friends. Now I can’t eat lasagne without remembering that event and blushing.

(1) When I came out to an old friend (oh that was ages ago), she asked whether I’d come out to my parents as well. I didn’t know what “come out” meant back then and replied, “Yeh, we’d probably dine out.”

Unrelated to languages; but if my parents somehow discover Trusty #1 and Trusty #3 among my luggage later, that would so top the list…

Hong Kong’s main language of communication is Cantonese, but it’s not uncommon that a native Hong Kong-er (yours truly, for example) mixes an English word or two into their daily Cantonese conversation. Some do it to show off; some do it mainly because they suck at expressing themselves entirely in their mother tongue. As much as a braggart I seem to be, it’s definitely the latter case for me… (and I am aware that I can’t really express myself in English, either).

The normal Hong Konger usually says “wei” when they pick up the phone, but some just like to say “hello”, er, to be creative? I’m rather surprised, though, that most of those who said “hello” didn’t actually expect the person on the other end to reply in English. The following happens quite frequently when I call people…

someone picks up the phone
Me: 喂? (Sounds like “wei”)
Person: Hello?
Me: May I speak to so-and-so, please?
Person: … (awkward silence) Wait.
person puts down phone
(whispers in Cantonese, confused, possibly frowning): She… speaks English…

Darling, if only you said “wei” instead of “hello”.

In other news, oh boy am I inspired to make a new (but not necessarily better) layout for the domain. Everything’s already here *taps head*, now let’s see if I could squeeze the time needed to put the idea into graphics and codes into my tight schedule of eating, sleeping, reading, drawing, prospectus-flipping*, porno-watching, etc. that I (have to) do every day.

*I should really write an entry on this.