Monday, August 06, 2007

...her first hokkien language boo-boo.

I managed to survive 2 weeks in Penang without getting any crossed signals. I thought I finally could sort of blend in. But Penang wanna fool with me. Lure me into a false sense of security and then wham!

The past 2 weeks, I managed to order food by pointing, nodding my head, holding out my finger to indicate quantity, or speaking in Cantonese or English (yes, some of the Chinese stall owners are that language savvy).

Then the boo-boo came.

In a nutshell... I ordered something but the food came to be something else. It's ok if the error stops there. But no! I ordered 1 pack to "tapau" and she gave me 2 packs!! How am I gonna finish 2 big packs of fried rice with big chunks of pork?? But it was no use arguing. She was really busy (I had to wait 30 minutes and there were a lot of people waiting too) and she kept pushing the plastic bag to me. Being unable to converse with her verbally or in sign language, I had no choice but to shelve out money to pay for the 2 packs.

Anyways, I won't be going back there even though the food was good. Unless someone who can speak Hokkien is volunteering to be my dinner date. ;-p

1 comment:

alex-dreamland said...

I will be more than happy to be your dinner date. Hokkien? "Bo Boon teh" (no problem), I kaw thim for you...but you have to pay my transportation expensese from KL to Penang lah....hahaha....