I wish people who invent these things would realize that if a guy spells D.E.A.R., he is probably trying to write the word “dear”. But no. The predictive text people jump to the conclusion that I am writing the word “feghi”.
At lunchtime I am complaining loudly about this at the Quite Good. “I mean, how many communications of any kind in the history of the world have started with the word ‘feghi’?” I ask.
Ignoring the fact that this is clearly a rhetorical question, Benny gives me an answer I don’t want to hear.
“Probably a great many,” he says. “Feghi is a common first name for boys in small towns in southern Egypt.”
I respond that it is morally wrong and should be illegal for someone in Hong Kong to have so much arcane knowledge about stuff on the other side of the world.
And besides, even if feghi was the most common way to start text messages in southern Egypt (which I seriously doubt, as I expect he simply made up this factoid to annoy me), why should it be programmed into my mobile phone purchased in a city ten thousand kilometers away?
His answer is typically glib: “Actually, it’s only about eight thousand kilometers away.”
Which leads me to an important question. Why is there so much emphasis in society today on the importance of being clever? Surely most clever people are incredibly annoying?
Wednesday, October 22
Dear Diary, today I discover that school bosses seem to agree with me, because they have dramatically altered the curriculum.
In my day, we went to school to learn Maths and English. Today, the top subject for my children is: “How to be an Eco-Nazi: A beginner’s guide.”
This evening, I stroll from my room into the living room only to hear my older daughter bark at me. “DAD. You didn’t switch off the light. We’re trying to like save the world here, if you don’t mind?” Her irony level would have had got the thumbs up from King Achish. This is my daughter who was at that precise moment watching the computer with one eye, her Nintendo DS with another eye, the TV with some sort of invisible third eye, while fiddling with her iPod with one hand and scratching the dog with the other.
This child alone consumes 40 per cent of the entire electricity output of the South China grid. When she goes to bed, the people running the network close down a couple of power stations and breathe a sigh of relief.
But of course I did not point out the irony to her. Criticizing your child is Bad Parenting. I read it in a magazine. They lose their self-esteem and become drug addicts, and it’s all the parents’ fault.
So I go back to my room and turn off the light.
Actually, I’ll tell you another reason why I am so nice to her. She’s the only one who will be able to turn off the “predictive text” function on my mobile phone. If she refuses to do that for me, I will be left with only one course of action. Move to Egypt and adopt a boy named Feghi.
Thursday, October 23
This morning there is yet another commentator moaning on the radio about how hyper-sensitive Asians are. Hey, guy, you would be sensitive too if you were the biggest group of people on the planet but had no presence in World Culture.
The broadcast so infuriates me that I put in a long-distance call to one of the world’s biggest publishers. The head office is in the US, of course. After only six dead ends, I manage to speak to a real human being in the right department for international content, which is the Trade Rights Department. (Six dead ends is quite a good score for a fishing-by-phone operation.)
“Hi, you guys are global publishers, right? I have a really interesting under-served market for you. It’s BIG. Lots of readers. You interested?”
“Er, what do you mean? How many readers exactly?”
“Well, there are just over four billion people in Asia, and the majority are learning English. About 89 per cent of them have NO internet connection. Asians love reading. There’s a whole heap of book-buying going on.”
“Gosh. You say 89 per cent have no internet connection? That’s quite interesting, I guess. Do you mean India and China and those places?”
“Exactly. I’ve just finished a tour of those very two countries. Plus there’s Indonesia, which is the fourth most populous place in the world.”
There’s a silence as she considers this. Then: “To be honest, we do almost nothing in that area. We prefer to go for the bigger markets. Someone from the minorities department will call you back within two business days.”
She takes my number. Click. She’s gone.
There are just under seven billion people in the world. Four billion of us are in Asia. How does four billion count as a ‘minority’? How come global publishers prefer to avoid us and go for the ‘bigger markets’? I guess this must be some kind of New Math.
Tuesday October 28
Five days have passed. Nobody called back from the publishing company. Asia is not even important enough for someone from the minorities department, I suppose. I flick from my email to a news website. My jaw drops. Whoah. Global financial crisis continuing in a BIG way. Crash upon crash upon crash. This will probably not help my campaign to get rich enough to acquire property in the UK. Today, Hungary went bust. I didn’t even know there was a country called Hungary. I could have sworn that it had changed its name to Rhodesia or something.
Wednesday October 29
In a magazine profile today, someone refers to me as “Asia’s Dave Barry.”
“That’s nice,” says Ah-Fat.
“No, it’s not,” I grumble. “Inaccurate praise fools no one. Dave Barry is rich and famous.”
Eddie is with us on this occasion. “Why don’t you stop writing that stupid blog, total waste of time, and write a proper syndicated column like Dave Barry used to. He was published in thousands of newspapers, and he wrote lots of books—I distributed them here at one stage. We sold a good number of them.”
Sheila plays devil’s advocate. “But the newspapers are a sunset industry, aren’t they? How are they going to pay him?”
Eddie has heard this line before and has an instant answer. “Physical books and publications will always be with us,” he says. “Their demise has been predicted more than a hundred times over the centuries. No, consider syndication. In a downturn, newspapers are looking for cheap, good content. Offer them some. It’s an opportunity. Everyone wins.”
I tell him that quite a few newspapers were already printing my blog. Eddie tells me that he knows people at various big media companies in Asia, including Reuters, and will speak to them about getting me syndicated “across the wires”.
Des is not with us, but I know exactly what he would say. Newspapers pay very little and may go extinct. One day, maybe quite soon, we could be left with only the internet. Which pays nothing.
Chapter Eleven
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
In which an epigrammatist finds his dance card empty
Saturday, November 1
Dear Diary, a friend of my wife’s is booking a holiday that will take her to several Asian cities. Juliet Morin comes from a small country town in England, but once drove from London to Yugoslavia, which gave her a taste for motoring vacations.
“She wants to know if she should bring her driving license,” Mrs. Jam says.
“Sure,” I reply. “And I’ll organize the funeral.”
I meant it. Europeans should NEVER be allowed to drive in Asia unless they have medical proof of Total Invulnerability, i.e., they need a birth certificate proving they were born on the planet Krypton, as I have. It’s a clash of driving styles, you see. In England, if a car flashes its lights at you, the message is: “Do go first, please; I couldn’t POSSIBLY take precedence.” But if a car flashes its lights at you in Asia, the message is: “Get outta the way! I’m coming through! Banzaaaaai!” And that’s a direct quote from my grandmother, whose Morris Minor Traveler was the world’s first Weapon of Mass Destruction.
I tell her that I will contact Ms. Morin myself to brief her. But first I have to go to the bank.
My wife assumes that it is something to do with a short speaking trip to mainland China tomorrow. But actually I’m over-due for a painful discussion with the bank manager.
* * *
The interview room at the bank is very plush. The carpet is so thick that it’s almost impossible to stay upright. Clearly this is a deliberate move to make people feel so disorientated that they’ll agree to anything, even promising to buy “investment products” (complex financial instruments which magically turn humble piles of life savings from widows, orphans and humorists into excessive bonuses for bankers).
The bank has arranged an “account executive” (“robber”) to “look after my interests” (“steal my money”), and she has summoned me to discuss my finances.
“You have requested a mortgage to buy a house in London. We have looked at your income and outgoings and made some projections. You live in an apartment in an area where prices are rising steeply. You have three children you expect to put through university. But you don’t have much in the way of savings, and, most significant of all, you don’t seem to have a job,” says the elegant, dark-suited Hong Kong Chinese banker in perfect English with a slight Australian accent. “You understand that we will require extensive proof of a regular income.”
I explain that I do have a job. I am a writer. “I compose books, blogs, newspaper columns and comedy routines. I might even be the busiest writer in Asia these days.”
She nods. “Writer. I see. But are any of these paid activities? There’s no regular salary in the deposits columns of your statements.”
“Some months I earn a small fortune, some months nothing at all. It’s like being an independent consultant.” I cross my fingers under the table, hoping that the boring-but-businessy word “consultant” will get her on my side.
But her eyes harden. She’s one of those people who thinks (“realizes”) that she knows the true meaning of “independent consultant” (“unemployed”). Once more I find myself cursed by the pestilent existence of clever people.
To correct her, I explain that I could get a regular salary “any time I want”. I tell her that it’s my choice to be an independent consultant as I have a special niche, a unique selling proposition that few other creative people in Asia have. “I am a composer of hilarious utterances. I am an epigrammatist. I am the official humorist for repressive regimes,” I explain. “I can make communists laugh.”
She smiles rather icily. “That sounds… interesting. But I’m sorry, Mr. Jam. Without a regular income and a track record, there will be a problem obtaining approval for the loan.”
I tell her that last year and this year had been a bit bumpy but I was confident of a large, regular, growing salary from now onwards. “For example, in the next two weeks, I have live gigs in Guangdong and in Bangkok, and deadlines for essays which will appears in maybe half a dozen newspapers or magazines.”
“Come back and show me proof of your large, regular growing income,” she says. “Then we will move forward on this one. The house purchase is supposed to be completed before the end of this year, according to your letter. It’s already November. So shall we say two weeks?”
I nod and smile to display a confidence I don’t feel, and stagger away from the super-deep carpet (it’s like walking on the bristles of a giant broom), reaching flat ground with a real sense of relief.
Sunday, November 2
Road travel in Asia is bizarre. Definitely a topic for a column. If you are in a country where people drive in a careful, orderly way, like Japan, cars have a special seatbelt for every bodily protuberance. But if you are in a country where vehicles ricochet around like wrecking balls ripping up condemned estates, most cars have no seatbelts and some don’t even have doors.
This diary entry is being written while your philosopher/ epigrammatist is bouncing along in the back of a taxi on the mainland. China is a country with a very Asian code of driving. Bicycles give way to motorcycles which give way to cars which give way to trucks which give way to tanks which give way to presidential vehicular entourages. Pedestrians give way to everybody, all the time, sometimes including when they are asleep at home. Some roads in Beijing are so un-crossable that entire communities live and die without ever managing to get to the other side. They spend their lives like Moses gazing on the Promised Land.
In Asia, traffic lights have the same colors as elsewhere on the planet, but the meanings differ. Green means go. Amber means go faster. Red means put your foot flat on the floor and go through at twice the speed of light, because then no one can see you.
By the way, I am in China to give a speech tonight in Guangdong province, land of frogs which quack.
Monday, November 3
Last night’s speech went fine. I talked about relationships in Asia. This morning, in the White Swan Hotel, Guangzhou, over a room service breakfast, I find Juliet’s email address and send her the Unwritten Rules of the Road for Drivers in Asia.
Rule 1: There are no rules, except unofficial ones.
Rule 2: The other person has right of way.
Rule 3: Unless you are the other person. In which case, the other other person has right of way.
Rule 4: Or unless you are a cow. Cows always have right of way.
Rule 5: All traffic drives on the left, except for traffic which drives on the right and traffic which drives in the middle.
Rule 6: All drivers are obliged to help break the record for largest number of vehicles abreast on a two-lane highway.
Rule 7: Signaling before you turn is considered bad form, since surprises are more fun.
Rule 8: When driving at night, headlights should be kept at full beam to blind oncoming drivers, or switched off (see reference to “surprises” in Rule 7).
Rule 9: There is no rule nine.
Rule 10: Or ten.
Just before I unplug the computer to check out of the hotel, Juliet writes back with a question: “If you are overtaking, which side do you go on?”
I write back using an instant message service: “You should only overtake on the right or the left, or under, or over.”
Juliet responds that someone told her that driving was safer than walking in China, since vehicles so often drive along the pavements.
This is partly true, I respond. “Yet most drivers are careful to follow the golden rule of Asian motoring, which says: Avoid running over pedestrians unless necessary.”
“Yikes,” she replies. Another Beano reader.
* * *
On the train heading back to Hong Kong, I do some thinking about motoring, perhaps a topic worthy of a Readers’ Digest piece. Learning to stay alive on the roads in this region is an excellent way of acquiring life skills. In fact, I would go so far as to say (I feel a list of aphorisms coming up):
Everything I Need to Know I Learned Driving a Car in Asia.
1) If you unexpectedly get close to someone, give them a smile.
2) If you get close to someone who hasn’t noticed you are there, make a noise.
3) Bright lights blind people.
4) Right of way is determined by size.
5) On the journey of life, always travel with friends.
6) Suspiciously kind strangers who offer to drive you round the bend will eventually drive you round the bend.
7) Why do lists always have ten items?
8) It’s annoying.
9) Really annoying.
10) Blah blah blah.
There, done. If I lived in America the list could be published as a short book and I would be the next Deepak Chopra.
Tuesday, November 4
Always good to wake up back in Hong Kong, even if I find myself precariously baslanced on 20 cms of bed with a child’s feet in my face (why do children always sleep at right angles to parents?). But then I look at my engagements diary and feel rather depressed. I have one gig in Thailand, and a couple of school visits, but otherwise it’s rather quiet for the foreseeable future, now that Fanny has gone. Today, there’s nothing on my sched
ule at all. The kids are off at school, so I decide to wander through Causeway Bay, officially declared in the morning paper as the world’s most expensive shopping area in terms of rent per square millimeter (that’s how they count it). Definitely fodder for a routine or a column.
As usual, Causeway Bay is full of huge, glittering multi-story malls crammed with thousands of people buying essentials, such as their 17th diamond-studded watch—and this is in the middle of a so-called global financial crisis. It’s odd: there is so much money sloshing around Hong Kong that it should be easy to get a piece of it. A million US dollars would do very nicely right now, for example. But how to acquire some quickly and easily—that’s the question. The whole bank robber thing is considered kind of gauche these days, and besides, I don’t think I’d be very good at it, being slow, puny, cowardly, etc. As for the traditional Hong Kong way of getting rich, making a killing in the stock market, well it seems that that no longer works. Most investment accounts are steadily shrinking. The very few that go up manage to climb only one or two per cent a year—which is Harold Woot’s cut.
My reverie is interrupted by shouts and waving hands from the other side of the road. “Yoohoo,” someone calls. “Are you Mr. Jam?”
Several of the trendy young people who have started reading my columns on the internet or in The Standard are fashionistas (Spanish for “idiots”). The aptness of this term is reconfirmed to me by these two professional shoppers, Wei and Aditi, who bump into me this morning and show me, in a shop window we are passing, the Hot New Thing in the world of extreme shoe-collectors (“women”).
The latest Jean Paul Gaultier shoe looks like it is made of toddler-cup plastic. Spotting the US$320 price tag, I say: “I am assuming this is the finest calf-leather treated to look like nasty cheapo plastic.”
The Curious Diary of Mr Jam Page 26