Jolly J!

One summer day in Kremenchuk, I felt like having some ice cream so I hied off to the corner store.

I was getting two pre-wrapped cones of Ukrainian ice cream from the store’s freezer when my mobile phone beeped. It was my husband sending me a message. I tried to read the text message in a jiffy when all of a sudden the grocery owner grabbed the ice cream cones from my left hand and slammed them back into the freezer as she reprimanded me in Russian on machine-gun mode. She kept pointing at my mobile phone as she hurled angry words at me. Maybe she thought I was going to steal her ice cream and was calling my (non-existent) ‘partner in crime’ to prepare the get-away car parked somewhere nearby.

A young man, who was with his friends, spoke on my behalf. I think he told the grocer that I couldn’t speak Russian. And then I heard the magic words that brought relief to my heart, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he asked from afar. I responded: “Ja! Ja! Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch. Ich spreche Englisch auch. (Yes! Yes! I speak a little German. I also speak English.)

The young man then moved away from his friends, whose eyes were glued to what was happening, and swaggered towards my direction. It appeared that he wanted to make my acquiantance. I tried to remember all the German phrases I knew — you know, those you try to learn when planning to go to Germany as a tourist.

“Wie heissen Sie? (How are you called?)” he asked.

“Ich heisse Jay-Ann. Ich komme aus den Philippinen. (I come from the Philippines),” I answered.

Clearing his throat and trying to look cool, he said rather proudly, “Ich spreche Deutsch. Ich heisse English. (I speak German. I’m called English.)”

“Wie bitte? (Pardon me?)” I asked, a bit confused.

“Ich heisse Englisch (I’m called English),” he repeated, still looking as confident as ever.

I couldn’t believe my ears. There was clearly something linguistically awry, I thought.

“Also, Vielen Dank! Auf Wiedersehen. (Ok, thank you very much. Good-bye.),” I said clumsily.

Thinking that the young man might want to chat me up in (bad) German, I quickly summoned the still angry grocery owner to get the two cones of ice cream for me and paid for them. I then dashed towards the exit. And with one last look at the guy called ‘English,’ I waved good-bye and escaped on foot.

Confusing German conversations are not my thing. (Kremenchuk, Ukraine/July 2005)

As we enter the herbal medicine shop, we are awed to see a phletora of alternative medicine options before us — shelves and glass counter top displays of medicines in plastic jars eagerly awaiting us.

I ask the balding, middle-aged male shopkeeper, probably a Chinese herbal doctor, if he has in stock a ready cure for skin asthma. He answers in Cantonese. Great, another language-barrier situation here, I say to myself.

I resort to body language and pidgin English, “See this?” I ask while pointing at my left arm, where one can see some red spots here and some blemishes there. “Do you have something here that can treat this? It’s skin asthma. I have skin asthma.”

He scratches his head and says something in Cantonese. I repeat what I have just said, and show him my arm again.

He shakes his head. “Clearly, he cannot speak and understand English,” my sister tells me.

Desperate, I try another way to communicate with him. I look at his flawless Chinese skin and say, “Look at your arms. So nice skin…so nice. Clear and smooth. Compare it to mine.” I extend both my arms for him to see the state of the skin asthma condition.

Then I do the unthinkable: I take his right hand and let his middle fingers caress my now raised left arm with my careful guidance — from left to right, then from right to left, and back. “Can you feel that? It’s not as smooth as your skin.” My sister, who is standing on my left side, murmurs in Tagalog, “Ano ba yan.”

But despite my best effort to send the message across, the shopkeeper’s face looks blank.

Minutes pass, and the non-communication is beginning to frustrate me. I then look around for herbal medicines I might need. I spot a plastic container labelled “Stomach Pills.” Thank God…English!

I ask the shopkeeper to give me some details on how to take these pills. His face lights up. He then explains everything to me in speedy Cantonese. 

After his clear-as-mud explanation, I buy the “Stomach Pills” just for the heck of it, and leave the shop with my sister.

All that touching (a self-imposed dermatological exam) for nothing makes my stomach churn all of a sudden. (Hong Kong/September 1994)