hotel staff could never tell whether you were a backpacker or a child of the billionaire banker in the presidential penthouse suite. Thus she’d stick her nose in the air and wander through fancy hotels at will.
Donning a snooty expression, she waltzed calmly across the dazzling, over-lit, over-air-conditioned lobby and marched past the reception desks. When she reached the private elevator that took guests to the 45th floor restaurant, she found a sign outside explaining that the restaurant was closed this evening for a private party, the name of which was given simply as TIL.
She sneaked around the sign and took the elevator up, enjoying the glittering view of the city through the external glass wall almost as much as Wong had. Reaching the gloomy corridor at the top, she followed its curves till she came to the blazing, neon-lit doorway that her employer had entered an hour earlier. ‘This Is Living’ said the sign. This was it—the dining club which Vega and his storm-troopers planned to attack this evening. The door was shut. She tried to push it open, but it was locked.
After tapping on the door for a couple of minutes, she heard someone unlock it from the inside. A man in a Mandarin-collared staff uniform eyed her suspiciously. ‘Yes, missy? You want?’ He looked from side to side, as if he expected other people to be present. He looked genuinely surprised that there was no one in the corridor other than herself. Had the other guests left servants or bodyguards outside? And if so, where were they?
‘Yes, missy?’ the doorman asked again.
Missy missy missy. What a funny title she had had to get used to. Or was it missee? The whole -ee ending thing had been a problem for her, as was the ‘L’ and ‘R’ switching thing. When people in China spoke that way, it made her think of the worst sort of mock Chinese from the old days of British television: ‘You wantee drinkee tea, missee? Velly nice.’ It was the Chinese of her father’s old Peter Sellers’ videos. It was Goon Show Chinese: Ying Tong Yiddle I Po . It was not the sort of Chinese that decent, aware, politically correct young people would dream of acknowledging. But what to do when you went to China and some people actually did say: ‘You are Blitish, missee?’ You couldn’t comment on it or quote it or correct it or laugh at it or even admit to noticing it.
The truly awkward thing with stereotypes was not that they were inaccurate; it was that they were sometimes on target. Over the past week, she had learned that the Blitish Missee thing was only a minor factor in what was known locally as Chinglish; there was a host of other linguistic switches she had to get used to. Instead of yes or no , people sometimes answered a question by repeating it as a statement. Almost everyone pronounced her name as two syllables: Joy-Si. And everyone pronounced Q as CH. And ZH was J. And R was the hardest of all—it kind of hovered between the sound of J and R and SH. One thing she had discovered that was a great comfort to her: absolutely no Chinese person ever said: Ah so. The Western comedy screenwriters had got that one dead wrong. To her surprise, she found that the only linguistic group which used that phrase regularly were expat Germans.
‘Missy?’
‘Yes. I’m with Mr Wong. I’m a bit late.’
His eyebrows rose. He was not happy. She was, indeed, very late. But was she meant to be there at all? His irritated look said that his instructions specified there were to be only eighteen guests, and according to his restaurant diary, all eighteen of them had arrived more or less on time—so who was this girl?
‘Your booking is for tonight, missy? Is a private party tonight. This Is Living Club.’
‘Yes, I’m with Mr Wong. CF Wong? He’s the feng shui master working for Mr De Labauve, the manager?’
The expression in the door captain’s eyes changed. She had said the magic words: the name of the boss. She must be legitimate after all. How
Donning a snooty expression, she waltzed calmly across the dazzling, over-lit, over-air-conditioned lobby and marched past the reception desks. When she reached the private elevator that took guests to the 45th floor restaurant, she found a sign outside explaining that the restaurant was closed this evening for a private party, the name of which was given simply as TIL.
She sneaked around the sign and took the elevator up, enjoying the glittering view of the city through the external glass wall almost as much as Wong had. Reaching the gloomy corridor at the top, she followed its curves till she came to the blazing, neon-lit doorway that her employer had entered an hour earlier. ‘This Is Living’ said the sign. This was it—the dining club which Vega and his storm-troopers planned to attack this evening. The door was shut. She tried to push it open, but it was locked.
After tapping on the door for a couple of minutes, she heard someone unlock it from the inside. A man in a Mandarin-collared staff uniform eyed her suspiciously. ‘Yes, missy? You want?’ He looked from side to side, as if he expected other people to be present. He looked genuinely surprised that there was no one in the corridor other than herself. Had the other guests left servants or bodyguards outside? And if so, where were they?
‘Yes, missy?’ the doorman asked again.
Missy missy missy. What a funny title she had had to get used to. Or was it missee? The whole -ee ending thing had been a problem for her, as was the ‘L’ and ‘R’ switching thing. When people in China spoke that way, it made her think of the worst sort of mock Chinese from the old days of British television: ‘You wantee drinkee tea, missee? Velly nice.’ It was the Chinese of her father’s old Peter Sellers’ videos. It was Goon Show Chinese: Ying Tong Yiddle I Po . It was not the sort of Chinese that decent, aware, politically correct young people would dream of acknowledging. But what to do when you went to China and some people actually did say: ‘You are Blitish, missee?’ You couldn’t comment on it or quote it or correct it or laugh at it or even admit to noticing it.
The truly awkward thing with stereotypes was not that they were inaccurate; it was that they were sometimes on target. Over the past week, she had learned that the Blitish Missee thing was only a minor factor in what was known locally as Chinglish; there was a host of other linguistic switches she had to get used to. Instead of yes or no , people sometimes answered a question by repeating it as a statement. Almost everyone pronounced her name as two syllables: Joy-Si. And everyone pronounced Q as CH. And ZH was J. And R was the hardest of all—it kind of hovered between the sound of J and R and SH. One thing she had discovered that was a great comfort to her: absolutely no Chinese person ever said: Ah so. The Western comedy screenwriters had got that one dead wrong. To her surprise, she found that the only linguistic group which used that phrase regularly were expat Germans.
‘Missy?’
‘Yes. I’m with Mr Wong. I’m a bit late.’
His eyebrows rose. He was not happy. She was, indeed, very late. But was she meant to be there at all? His irritated look said that his instructions specified there were to be only eighteen guests, and according to his restaurant diary, all eighteen of them had arrived more or less on time—so who was this girl?
‘Your booking is for tonight, missy? Is a private party tonight. This Is Living Club.’
‘Yes, I’m with Mr Wong. CF Wong? He’s the feng shui master working for Mr De Labauve, the manager?’
The expression in the door captain’s eyes changed. She had said the magic words: the name of the boss. She must be legitimate after all. How
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