(Calcutta) (Failed)? Or were they apocryphal? I certainly remember speaking to somebody who had seen a plate outside a dental surgery in the Yemen which said: Bachelor of Dental Surgery (Failed). I suppose that if one’s toothache were severe enough, one might just take the risk.
“Edward Hong was very urbane. He was an impressive-looking man with a pencil moustache and elegant patent-leather shoes. He appeared terribly pleased to see me and summoned a maid to produce a tray of tea, which we drank out of Royal Doulton cups.
“‘I do so miss good old John’s,’ he said, referring, I assumed, to St John’s College, Cambridge. ‘I had such a well-placed room in Second Court, and from time to time I took tea with the Master and his wife in the Lodge. He had a strong interest in Chinese ceramics, and I used to help him read the reign marks on the base of vases. We also used to discuss Waley’s translations of Tang poetry. We discussed those for hours. Hours.’
“I listened to this talk about St John’s and Cambridge for almost half an hour. At one point, he asked me if the Church clock continued to stand at ten to three, and I replied that there was, as far as I knew, honey still for tea. He was delighted with that, and at the end of our conversation I think that he would have done anything for me. So that was when I asked him whether it would be possible to arrange an introduction to some contemporary pirates.
“He hesitated for only the briefest of moments before he smiled and said that this could certainly be arranged. It would take a day or two, he said, and in the meantime would I care to meet his daughter, Mary, who was studying piano and French? ‘She loves Chopin,’ he said, ‘and I love listening to her playing. I can listen to Chopin for hours–hours and hours.’”
23. The Charms of Neo-Melanesian Pidgin
“I had rather a lot of Chopin that morning, I must confess,” wrote Domenica. “The Mazurka in C sharp minor, the Nocturne in E major, and so on, all interpreted sympathetically by Mary Hong, daughter of Edward Hong, M.A. (Cantab.). By lunchtime I was obliged to look discreetly at my watch and claim that, owing to jet lag, I needed to get back to the hotel for an afternoon nap.
“We parted the greatest of friends. If I came back for a midmorning tea a couple of days later, Edward Hong said, he would make sure that there would be a pirate contact for me to meet. ‘He might be a little on the rough side,’ he said. ‘But we can have some Chopin afterwards to make up for it.’
“I returned to the hotel and spent an afternoon writing up my diary. I haven’t done such a thing for years, but I have the feeling that my experiences here in Malacca are going to be somewhat unusual and should be recorded. I did a little pen and ink sketch of Edward Hong in the margins and one of his daughter playing Chopin. I was quite pleased with these, although you would regard them as mere amateur scratchings, Angus. Yes, you would, although you would be far too polite to say as much.
“I spent the next two days wandering around Malacca. It’s a delightful place, a bit like Leith, in fact, but with totally different people and buildings, and climate, too, I suppose. I spent very pleasant hours reading in a chair in the garden of the hotel, under a very shady tree that looked remarkably like those Sea Grape trees you see in places such as Jamaica, but no doubt something quite different. I read about the history of this place–very colourful–and about all the different groups of people who have made their home here. This had implications for my study of the pirates. Because of the dearth of information on the subject, I had no idea whether they would be Malay, Chinese or Indian in their origin, and this had implications not only for how I would approach the study, but also for how we could communicate.
“I had envisaged that I might need an interpreter, but then it occurred to me that because of
“Edward Hong was very urbane. He was an impressive-looking man with a pencil moustache and elegant patent-leather shoes. He appeared terribly pleased to see me and summoned a maid to produce a tray of tea, which we drank out of Royal Doulton cups.
“‘I do so miss good old John’s,’ he said, referring, I assumed, to St John’s College, Cambridge. ‘I had such a well-placed room in Second Court, and from time to time I took tea with the Master and his wife in the Lodge. He had a strong interest in Chinese ceramics, and I used to help him read the reign marks on the base of vases. We also used to discuss Waley’s translations of Tang poetry. We discussed those for hours. Hours.’
“I listened to this talk about St John’s and Cambridge for almost half an hour. At one point, he asked me if the Church clock continued to stand at ten to three, and I replied that there was, as far as I knew, honey still for tea. He was delighted with that, and at the end of our conversation I think that he would have done anything for me. So that was when I asked him whether it would be possible to arrange an introduction to some contemporary pirates.
“He hesitated for only the briefest of moments before he smiled and said that this could certainly be arranged. It would take a day or two, he said, and in the meantime would I care to meet his daughter, Mary, who was studying piano and French? ‘She loves Chopin,’ he said, ‘and I love listening to her playing. I can listen to Chopin for hours–hours and hours.’”
23. The Charms of Neo-Melanesian Pidgin
“I had rather a lot of Chopin that morning, I must confess,” wrote Domenica. “The Mazurka in C sharp minor, the Nocturne in E major, and so on, all interpreted sympathetically by Mary Hong, daughter of Edward Hong, M.A. (Cantab.). By lunchtime I was obliged to look discreetly at my watch and claim that, owing to jet lag, I needed to get back to the hotel for an afternoon nap.
“We parted the greatest of friends. If I came back for a midmorning tea a couple of days later, Edward Hong said, he would make sure that there would be a pirate contact for me to meet. ‘He might be a little on the rough side,’ he said. ‘But we can have some Chopin afterwards to make up for it.’
“I returned to the hotel and spent an afternoon writing up my diary. I haven’t done such a thing for years, but I have the feeling that my experiences here in Malacca are going to be somewhat unusual and should be recorded. I did a little pen and ink sketch of Edward Hong in the margins and one of his daughter playing Chopin. I was quite pleased with these, although you would regard them as mere amateur scratchings, Angus. Yes, you would, although you would be far too polite to say as much.
“I spent the next two days wandering around Malacca. It’s a delightful place, a bit like Leith, in fact, but with totally different people and buildings, and climate, too, I suppose. I spent very pleasant hours reading in a chair in the garden of the hotel, under a very shady tree that looked remarkably like those Sea Grape trees you see in places such as Jamaica, but no doubt something quite different. I read about the history of this place–very colourful–and about all the different groups of people who have made their home here. This had implications for my study of the pirates. Because of the dearth of information on the subject, I had no idea whether they would be Malay, Chinese or Indian in their origin, and this had implications not only for how I would approach the study, but also for how we could communicate.
“I had envisaged that I might need an interpreter, but then it occurred to me that because of
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