In The Land Of The Chinese

(subtitle: There are Chinese in the land)

I was in a meeting today with several Chinese co-workers. At first it was cool, you know, I'm Filipino, they're Chinese - we all like rice, and we're talking in English. Like a mini United Nations minus the I-are-nuclear jokes. Sure, it's not really English as we know it. Some articles, pronouns, and prepositions may have been murdered in the process, but at least we're getting some information through.

Then this one guy entered the room. After a few minutes of struggling to talk to the other Chinese in English while trying to explain a point, I saw this one glint in his toothed smile that was requited by the other chinese, sorta like what you see when two gay pro wrestlers find each other a good match.

Then all hell broke loose.

What followed was some rapid fire Chinspeak that probably clocks faster than the processor of this PC. It's like the two suddenly supersaiyan'ed from 4 English words per minute to 10 Chinese essays per minute. After a while the rest of the chinese started speaking chinese too, rapid fire. I started thinking I was in the middle of a verbal warzone. Listening more carefully, I swear I could hear a Chinese beersong somewhere in the lingual orgy they were having.

I tried getting topic-related English words from their words but to no avail. It's like one minute we're talking about program requirements in English and the next moment, they're reciting chants from the f'ing Mahabarata. Occassionally I'd hear English words, but those that're completely out of topic. Imagine hearing something like:

Person1: Do tsei la. Poha poha. Unghou kao ma.
Person2: Ting ma tan lei, Shau kei wan po?
*SILENCE*
Everyone: (in Unison) BENITO MOUSSOLINI!
*Drunken Revelry*

And THEN they occassionally look at me and give me this crazy look, like they're waiting for my ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. Acknowledge what? Oh man, it felt like trying to write a movie review for a Korean film whose crappy subtitles died off midway. I had to stab my leg twice with a pen to quell my urge for violence.

After about two hours of me pretending to understand whatever they were talking about, they finally got all their heads nodding in agreement. So I asked my seatmate what they've been talking about for the last two hours. To which she replies:

"They say it's ok."


(This little article is actually based off a section of a stand-up routine I'm working on. I'll upload a vid later. By leater, I mean, whenever I feel like it. Anyway, laterz.)