Sunday, July 22, 2012

Middle-Age Honger

My mom enters my apartment unannounced, without knocking. I ran into my room to put more clothes on, already irritated.
She needed to drop off something at my place and she happened to be downtown working. Her co-worker was carpooling with her so she wanted to check out my apartment.

The whole time while my mom were discussing what she was dropping off and her asking me what else she needed out of her grocery bag, the woman kept up her soliloquy in Cantonese:

"WAH! Apartment so small! (WAH GUM SAI, etc.) The bed doesn't even fit the bedroom! WAH! That is the fridge? So tiny, never seen any this tiny! That sink, you can only fit one pot. No counter space. How is this possible a place so small. How is this liveable? That's it to the place? Nothing else? WAH, I can never live here, how does one live here? I would never be able to live here"

This went on for approximately 5-10 minutes, all the while she's sucking her teeth and shaking her head "tse tse tse" I looked at this women a couple of times with my eyebrows raised but didn't say a word the entire time. My mom pretended I didn't understand cantonese and looked at me horrified and giving me a look like, "don't talk back."

Before she left, she says to me in canton-laden mandarin, "your pantry is very pretty."
I gave her a tight-lipped smile, did not say anything, and closed the door behind them.

I was polite enough, considering I have never met her before.


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