Col. Sanders

Nov 2005

Window of the World (I translated that)

Here’s another one in Shenzhen, China.

I was careful using the right words when asking questions this time.

Our group just landed in Shenzhen and got booked over a small hotel right across a mall. After settling down we decided to head out to the mall to grab a bite, more like dinner. The group, there were about five of us decided to eat fast food; we saw a KFC poster in front of the mall so we were in unison that we eat at KFC. The tour guide from HK warned us to take care of our belongings since as she claims that people from mainland China were no good, I think in a nutshell she wanted to give us the impression that they were all a bunch of thieves and she added that mainland people barely know how to speak English whereas if in HK you won’t have any problem asking around.

Eiffel tower in China

In turn our tour guide from the mainland did the same bad mouthing to HK residents, calling them arrogant Chinese who doesn’t know how to look back where they came from, citing that most “Hongkonese” came from Shenzhen by swimming to the border. I don’t really know if there was an actual truth to it but I guess you get my drift…

Being that this is my first trip outside my country I felt I was boundaries beyond my safe zone, I took it to heart and watched every single move I made and vice-versa, from that point on every Chinese looking at me, I look at them back with doubt. I always thought that they’d take my passport, money, clothes, cut my hair too and then run. Looking back I now know that it was all BS, although the English part was true, which leads me to what I originally wanted to share…

Back inside this big mall we were looking for KFC. I asked a cleaning lady holding a mop if she could tell me where KFC was.

kfc

All I got was “ching-chong-wing-wang” which of course I did not understand. I even held my hand up as if signaling her to talk slowly. Yeah right, like that would have mattered “ching (pause) chong (pause) wing (pause) wang (pause)” duh I still wouldn’t get it! I would know “wing (pause)” but I doubt if that has the same meaning in Chinese as it would in English. So I just thought she wouldn’t understand me even if I tell her KFC KFC KFC a million times. Poor me, poor us rather, jabbering with words and yet clueless of each others jabber.

I figured to just ask another person and maybe I’d get lucky this time. Sigh! I went to a perfume stall and thought maybe this girl would have a better comprehension compared to the cleaning lady I asked before.

how do you say Eiffel in Chinese?

So I was really careful; I didn’t even dare tried completing a sentence. I just went K? (pause) F? (pause) C? (pause). But the same thing happened “ching-chong-wing-wang” this time it was faster than the first time. I even did a chicken dance just to show that I was looking for KFC, but still to no avail. I then saw a tarpaulin ad of KFC with Colonel Sanders on it. I pointed to it telling the perfume girl that that was the fast food store I was looking for even doing hand gestures, mimicking Col. Sanders wearing his glasses.

The girl looked at me shaking her head as if to tell me “why didn’t you say so?”.

She went Aaaaaahhhh! KEN(pause) TU(pause) CKY(pause)! Kentucky!!!

Hahaha(pause) hehehe (pause) Stupid me, I should’ve known. She then gave me directions in Chinese “ching-chong-wing-wang” complete with hand signals to the left and to the right, go forward and go this way and that.

In toto I still didn’t understand where she was leading me. I just pretended I did and headed to look for Ken.tu.cky. on our own.

We eventually found Kentucky, which was another nose bleed when it came to ordering food. We just pointed the meals that were on the menu and somehow we got our orders, I just don’t know if we paid the right amount since we paid in HK dollars and not RMB hehe.

Moral of the story: don’t go to another country just to eat fast food.