Saturday 14 May 2011

The wrong side of the bed

On our way back from a rather heavy office lunch, we happened to have a particularly cheerful taxi driver. He joked and laughed while my colleagues nodded politely. As my Chinese in non-existent, I enjoyed this time to sneak in a bit of shut-eye. But just as I was hitting that food coma phase, the cab driver eyes me in the rearview mirror and shouts,

"Hey, you! Sorry we speak in Chinese. I love American movies. Haha" He grins cheerily.
"Oh?" I ask, trying to show that I'm more than happy not to enter this conversation, and would-be-quite-pleased-if-everyone-went-back-to-talking-Cantonese-so I can-have-a-snooze.
"Yes, I learn slang." He laughs and translates what he's just said to my colleagues - who all speak fluent English, and so need simultaneous translation as much as I need to be kept awake.
"Oh?" I ask again, sinking in my seat.

"Yes. Like....Shit Head!"

He then switches back to Cantonese and seems to be explaining what a wonderful term this is, as it's much more metaphorical than it is literal.

"And more!" And so he proceeds to list his proudly borrowed words from the movies, interrupting himself to explain all the nuances around each word. Here's the list:

Love handles - that's for boys, not for girls. Girls have a..
Muffin top - while boys also have a..
Spare tyre - which is the inner part of a tyre
Duffus - which means stupid
Monkey business
Eyes over stomach - which means you eat too much
Big wig
Moron
Back seat driver - haha. That's you!
Sleeping on the wrong side of the bed

Ace.

3 comments:

  1. Funny! Never a dull moment in Hong Kong taxis

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't like blogs, but this is really too funny! Salud,

    pep

    ReplyDelete
  3. What about 'shut the fuck up'? I am sure he'd been pleased to add to his collection.

    ReplyDelete