A Minister's Test

Reclassifying South African Chinese as Coloured got me thinking. I'm prepared to accept that my spoken English is at times a little too precise, clipped even. There are occasions when fellow whiteys stare at me blankly. But as the Minister has pointed out, there's now no excuse for the Chinese to feign non-understanding. Clearly failure in my previous attempts at communication is nothing more than a cleverly designed sham.

So I trundled down to the local Chinese supermarket, an epicurean haven of strange tins, plastic packets of dried exotic fungi (or dried exotic something that has now become fungi) and not a sell by date in sight. This is very challenging given I subscribe to the Woolies world view that all foodstuffs become toxic waste one second after the sell by date. The fact that the store is generally frequented by Chinese shoppers, none of whom seem to be suffering from amoebic dysentery or visible lesions of any form, I'm prepared to concede that the packets do not contain anthrax or anything life threatening and that if a tin is not bulging ready to explode clearly the contents are fit for human consumption.

Now my point is, previously whenever I have attempted to ask about the content of anything, its use, etc. I'm either greeted with a blank stare or the reply that its very nice. Apparently everything they stock is very nice. Previously this lead me to believe that either the entire Chinese population share a uniform palate, I'm not being understood, or simply that the sweet young thing behind the counter is just trying to make a sale.

Living in Cape Town exposes one to the local patois and by osmosis one absorbs some of the nuances.
So with the Minister's advice fresh in my mind I strode in prepared to emerge with a bag of delights perfect for my next culinary experiment.
Settling on a tin that had an image on it that could either be a strange root vegetable or the intestines of some sea creature from the abyss I headed for the counter arm extended, expectant look on my face. Seizing the moment I put the Minister to the test. Hoesit my larny, the blank stare threw me for a moment, had I overstepped the mark, had I failed to acknowledge some social norm? After a moment she smiled politely and I realised that she was just a little reserved and being the spitting image of the girl on the cover of Asian Hotties 33 on sale at the dodgy video store next door, possibly she was just tired of men being over familiar.

I thrust the tin in front of me, Lekka ne? Another blank stare albeit with a hint of disapproval, clearly a dont check me skeef look. Wiesse larny dink jay is ek? Looking through the window at the road outside a mini bus taxi driver was screaming Mowwwbraaay Kaaap! A second taxi pulled up and shouted the same hunting call and like two bull walruses they faced off and traded insults. The shop assistant paid them no attention, maybe she didn’t understand the altercation outside? She continued to stare at me in an odd way.

Like a child learning that Father Christmas is a lie, the realisation dawned that a government minister may not be correct, my world was reeling, an acid test was required. The truth would be out one way or another. I again thrust the tin forward with the hint of a smile and in the sweetest voice said jo ma se poe* She beamed back and said very nice.
I quietly retreated, replaced the tin and slunk out the door.

On impulse I went into the video store and picked up a copy of Asian Hotties 33. As luck would have it, just as time warps and the period from shelf to innocent brown paper bag expands into an eternity in complete contravention of Einstein's theories, the supermarket girl walked in. Slightly bashfully I looked at her and then at the cover, there was no doubt. She beamed and with a double thumbs up said, very nice. I suspect I'll be buying lots of tins of pickled coelacanth intestines in the future.