It means “white ghost” if I’m not mistaken.
Gwei = ghost
Lo = man
I’m not a Cantonese speaker, though, so I may be wrong. Is it pronounced “Guay-lo” or “Gwi-lo”?
.:Nichol:.
Being 6’4", blond and blue eyed constantly gets me in trouble in my 2nd homeland, Spain.
I’m not surprised though, Spain has a population of 38 million and receives 60 million tourists, annually. The vast majority of these speak little or no Spanish.
So when I walk into a little store and turn to someone to ask something, they tune their minds to: “Uh-oh, he’s going to speak English, which I don’t understand, s I must listen carefully.” When I shoot of a smattering of Spanish, they get confused, because they can’t really understand me. They’re not expecting Spanish coming out of my mouth, so a lot of the times I’m treated to a ¿Qué?.
So anyways, sitting at a bar with a Swedish friend, who also lived there, we’re talking about… whatever. Even though we both speak Spanish, there is no reason why we should do so, when there are no Spanish people in the group. Ordering a cerveza is no great test of our skills in Spanish, so no wonder the guys behind the counter thought we didn’t know any Spanish.
No real offense, but it was kinda funny when one guy said to the other: “¡Suenan como focas!”
They sound like seals [when talking]
My first language is Spanish. Unfortunately, I don’t look Hispanic/Latina, so people think I don’t know it (specially Spanish-speaking people!).
One day, at a bus stop, a young woman sits beside me, reading The House of Mango Street. What followed was probably my fault, since she was reading the Spanish translation, and I should have then spoken to her in Spanish. I didn’t, and she didn’t notice Spanish wasn’t my first language.
We had a discussion about that book. In my opinion, I read it and didn’t have a good impression of it, not the best immigrant-theme book I’ve read (and I read a lot of them in my high school). I told her I wanted to read the author’s other works, though, to see if her other works were better.
The bus came, and we both got inside. I sat in front of her, and she sat next to a Mexican guy (well, Mexican-American, he said so in Spanish). Both start discussing the book again, in Spanish. The woman then says that she was talking to another student (me), and that the student didn’t understand the importance of the book (blablabla)… and she mentioned it was only understandable if you were Latino/Hispanic! That made me mad, what does she think I am? Little prick, I’m as Latina as she is! But I kept my mouth shut, waiting to see what was his reply. He replied different, stating that only those that lived in exactly the same conditions as those in the book would understand it. That was better with me. Anyways, when I left the bus, I said Gracias to the driver, hopefully they heard it.
Just thought of another one…Moscow, November 1989. I’m on an Intourist bus with 40 other American students, which I hate, because it’s nearly impossible to be any more conspicuous than that, and because it attracts all sorts of con artists. We’re waiitng for our tour guide to see if we can get tickets into the Pushki Museum, and in the meantime, 2 teenage Russian guys come up to the bus and try to sell us crappy Soviet-made fake fur hats with earflaps.
Now I was seriously considering it, because no matter how cold it gets in Chicago (and it does go to 40 below zero or even colder here on occasion), somehow in Russia it feels colder at the same temperature: malnutrition and erratic indoor heating have somethig to do with that, I suspect. I had a decent wool hate, but thought maybe these would be warmer and less ocnspicuous; although fur ones were relatively plentiful if you knew where to look, I just can’t make myself buy fur (another foreign concept to Soviets).
So I ask the guys how much they want, in English (the language in which they hjad addressed us). Surprisingly, they actually quote me a price in rubles rather than dolllars, but of course an exhorbitant one (300 rubles, a good 40% more than the average Soviet monthly wage at the time). I take a peek inside the hat: all Soviet goods were required by law to be marked with the official state price, and the hat was marked 18 rubles. I asked the guy in Russian if he was aware of the criminal penalty for speculation in state-produced goods, and what kind of an idiot did he think I was? He turned a lovely shade of magenta, and his friend was cracking up. No sale for them!
i once heard a conversation about me and how i buy drugs from the store, during the time im listening to this and other comments about me, im looking at the employees and thinking im not buying drugs im buying cigarettes! there is a difference… so after i picked up the cigarettes i walked out and the store clerk ran out to my car and said sorry, i think he got tipped off by the clerk who took my money because of the look on my face, anyways he said sorry he didnt mean to talk about me in front of me, all i could say is that you should be careful, you dont know who understands what your saying based on appearances.
I just have to say this is a great, great thread. The Klingon in Blockbuster…oh, man that killed me!
I have no exciting stories, unfortunately. Gringa as I am, I have a vague enough appearance that hints I just might speak Spanish (which is the only other language I can function in), so more often than not people remain polite.
BUT…when the carpet installers came last August, they were a raucous bunch. I’m not fluent enough to comprehend in unfamiliar contexts (at school/work=can understand 80%; carpet installers? = 20%), but their tone as well as a few words made me suspicious that they weren’t exactly being caballeros (gentlemen). It doesn’t help when Spanglish kicks in; the mixture of languages confuses me all the more–but I heard a lot of joking about stealing, and distinctly heard the word “ladron” (thief) several times. I didn’t know what the context of their conversation was, but having a bunch of strangers in my house for 6+ hours talking about stealing?? I don’t think so. (They were just being obnoxious; the convo had sort of a frat-boy, machismo tone to it.)
Anyway, when those words hit my ears, I immediately came back in the house (we spent the day on the patio, pretty much). All the loud boys were on the stairs, out of view and unaware I’d entered, talking about what they would steal (whether it was my house or not, or from each other, or whatever, I don’t know). One lone worker was in the same room as me, and he read the look on my face and stiffly said, “I’m not stealing nothin’!”
I spoke quite a bit of Spanish to them the rest of the day, and a few were really taken aback. But man…I really wish I were more fluent!
Reread above… should be “she didn’t notice English wasn’t my first language”. Spanish is my first, English my second.
I don’t really speak Spanish, but I know a lot of the dirty words. I work in a resturant and whenever the spanish-speaking cooks say dirty things to me, I just smile at them like I don’t understand. I’m still waiting for the right moment to say anything back.
My boyfriend is Korean/Japanese and understands both of those languages fairly well. If you didn’t know, Korean-Japanese relations aren’t the best (although they are getting better).
One time, he was in Korea-town, talking in Japanese with his grandmother. A bunch of store clerks overheard them and started saying in Korean stuff like “dirty Japanese” “I bet they are going to steal stuff” and other nasty things like that. He waited until after they left the store and then told his grandmother to wait one second. He went back into the store and ripped them a new one in Korean.
My story isn’t exactly within the scope of the thread, but it is so cringeworthy that I think it merits retelling.
I was on a bus tour in Greece. The driver spoke excellent English; he had only the slightest accent, which I couldn’t quite pin down. I said something like, “You speak English almost perfectly.”
He said, “Well, I grew up in Canada.”
I almost died.