Wednesday, March 08, 2017
Lost in Translation
I have tremendous sympathy for the Chinaman who was mistakenly sent to a refugee camp in Germany. The poor man had his wallet stolen after arriving in Stuttgart as a tourist. Speaking neither German nor English, he tried to report his crime to the police, who promptly sent him to a refugee centre in Dusseldorf. There, he was photographed, fingerprinted and possibly deloused, before receiving a meal of soup and noodles. A German Red Cross worker was the first to notice something was amiss:
“He acted so different to the other refugees,” recalled Christoph Schlutermann. “He kept trying to tell people his story, but no one could understand him. He kept asking to get his passport back, which is the opposite of what most refugees do.”
Perplexed by his behaviour, Herr Schlutermann consulted a local Chinese restaurant, which advised him to install a Mandarin translation app on his mobile phone. This enabled him to communicate with the tourist, who told him he had come to Europe for a hiking holiday. The man was finally sent on his way after spending 12 days in the bureaucratic German asylum system. He chose not to make an official complaint, merely commenting that Europe was not what he imagined it to be. His patience and good manners are an example to us all.
The language barrier can be a headache for anyone in the tourism industry. Just recently, I was accosted by a tall blond woman, who had strayed a mile or two from the safari camp.
“Svo storog lorlin!” she squealed excitedly in an obscure Nordic tongue. Although I had no idea what she was talking about, her facial expression and body language suggested an interest in social intercourse. So I beckoned her to follow me to a plum tree and plucked a juicy fruit for her.
“Fakka feer ferrin,” she said. “Ech moon merra fin Dian Fossey.”
On hearing the words “Dian Fossey” alarm bells sounded in my head. There is a particular breed of woman that imagines she can travel to Africa and persuade the gorillas to revere her as their Sugar Mummy. So I took her by the hand and marched purposefully to the safari camp.
“So that’s where you’ve been, Gunnella!” exclaimed the manager. “Been showing her the secrets of the undergrowth, eh Bananas?” he added, winking at me.
“You must keep your guests on a tighter rein,” I replied. “She’s an amiable young woman, but wholly unequipped for solo expeditions in a foreign habitat.”
This incident shows what a risky business tourism can be. If Gunnella had encountered a pack of marauding baboons, instead of a civilised ape, there’s no telling what would have happened. The manager of the safari camp would have been winking out of the other side of his face. Let’s hope Gene Roddenberry was right in predicting a future where everyone, including the Klingons and Romulans, is fluent in English. The same language, spoken in a variety of interesting and amusing accents, is enough cultural diversity for one galaxy.
Labels: blondes, Chinamen, Languages, winking
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Mad rogues and Chinamen
Scientists from two European universities have postulated that the human brain can’t get any cleverer without driving its owner nuts. Too much grey matter in the skull, they say, overloads the emotional circuits and produces a personality that veers between the obsessive and the diabolical. That’s why modern humans are no smarter, on average, than Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.
This theory clearly has grains of truth. All the super-villains James Bond had to deal with were fiendishly intelligent and mad as hatters. Take Goldfinger, for example. He had 007 just where he wanted him, shackled to a worktop with his legs apart and a laser beam closing in on his groin. Everyone thought Bond’s testicles were toast, but Goldfinger spared him at the last minute and revealed the details of his insidious master-plan. He then allowed Bond to connive with his dolly-birds and turn the tables on him, to the point where he got sucked out of his own aircraft. The fat git was plainly bonkers.
When I mentioned this scientific conjecture to the manager of the safari camp, he made the following sceptical observation:
“If it’s really true, how come clever races like the Chinese don’t have an unusually high proportion of evil geniuses?”
He had a point, but not an unanswerable one.
“Obviously, there are cultural factors at play,” I said. “The Chinese are into feng shui and yoga, which bring about a natural balance between the yin and yang. If you discipline your mind with these oriental techniques, it’s not so easy to go off your rocker.”
“I don’t believe in all that stuff,” he replied. “The Chinese have their own unique brand of madness. Just look at Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. You don’t make noises and faces like that if you’re sound of mind.”
This inspired me to do my own research on the Mad Chinaman syndrome. The first case that caught my eye involves a man who does headstands on a metal spike. His name is Li Xin and he’s a former kung fu master who evidently got bored of giving people flying kicks. He then spent years perfecting his new stunt, which created an abominable hole at the top of his skull. His behaviour seems amazingly barmy on the face of it, but then I noticed that each headstand only lasts for ten seconds. This suggests it’s a party trick rather than a lifestyle choice, and he’s probably quite normal when he’s not upside down. Could there be health benefits too? I wouldn’t rule it out.
Then I came across a young fellow called Peter Chao, who lives in Vancouver and posts video clips of himself on You Tube. Chao is clearly very angry about a lot of things, but is he technically insane? I don’t think the ranting alone is sufficient evidence. However, he does have a habit of taking his shirt off for no reason, revealing the most hairless chest I’ve ever seen on a male primate. If that isn’t a sign of lunacy, I don’t know what is.
Labels: Chinamen, Goldfinger, human brain, madness
