Lost in Translation, without Sofia Coppola...

In Paris, I live a few streets away from Europe's biggest China Town. Thus it is hardly surprising that a mere 3-minute stroll from my front door leads me to a Thai Nail Bar. Just like in LA. Except that at this nail bar you can also have a Chinese, Indian or Japanese massage.

Last week, I decided to treat myself and booked a 1-hour Chinese massage for Saturday morning. I arrived for my massage on said morning, to find 3 clients having their nails done and one very surprised-looking Asian man folding hand towels at a table. He asked me if I had booked for the massage and I replied in the affirmative. Then he said something else, but all I understood was "wait for the girls to arrive, I am the only man". I know it's rich for me to say I don't understand accents in French when I am the unwilling owner of one myself... but I really battle to understand Asian accents in French. I asked how long the girls might take and got another answer I didn't understand. Lost in Translation, take 1.

Not one to kick up a fuss on a peaceful Saturday morning, I plonked myself into a comfy seat and started gawking at the Roadrunner cartoon on the muted, massive flatscreen TV that graced the stylish nailbar. Obviously I hadn't washed my hair - I was about to have a head massage, you understand - and knowing that my bed-head in conjunction with my puffy, sleepy face wasn't really presentable, I kept my coat and hat on. I have this kind of a hat, called a "casquette Gavroche" after the Les Miserables character:


I must have looked quite the twit, sitting in an armchair in a nailbar, clad in coat and gavroche, staring at a muted cartoon network screen. I didn't care though - exposing my hair was simply not an option and I was getting really caught up in my thoughts about violence in cartoons and other profound contemplations. Mr Asia offered me what I understood to be a glass of water and I gladly accepted. He returned with an unidentified lukewarm beverage which was not tea. Lost in Translation, take 2.

After an age, one of the other clients was ready to have the 20 minute massage that came with her special set of fake nails and so she asked about how many people in the salon performed massages. Mr Asia repeated that he was the only man and three women worked with him. At which point the 20-min massage special client turned to me and said,

I'm not sure you understood, but what he was saying before is that he can massage you, but if you prefer a woman, you would have to wait.

Well, no, I had not understood that. So I jumped up and made it clear that I didn't care if I was massaged by a man or woman, as long as I was massaged. And after a half hour of unnecessary silent cartoon watching, we finally got down to essentials. Just as well, because I thought I was going to expire in my hat and coat.

The massage went very well, until Mr Asia spoke to me.

pkdfiein dfi ffefojd sport ihcdo

I said nothing.
Mr Asia repeated,

pkdfiein dfi ffefojd sport ihcdo

I grunted in reply, trying to make the grunt as neutral as possible.

Yes/no/whateveryouneedmetosay

Not 5 minutes later and my very competent masseur spoke to me again. This time he needed me to do something that sounded like,

Heat, hard.

I had no idea what he wanted me to heat and how, seeing as I had no access to a radiator, so I lay dead-still, hoping he would forget the whole heat thing.
Unfortunatly he didn't. He repeted his request and then demonstrated a deep exhalation and blew air all over my back.

Heat, hard

was actually

breathe deeply.

Lost in Translatin, take 3.

When, towards the very end of the treatment he held my leg and shook it around and my hip-flexor ligament gave an unpleasant twinge that made me wince and he said,

It's normal, you haven't done sport in a long time

I knew I had been Lost in Translation a fourth time.

Happy Leap Year Day!

Flirt recipe for a sunny day in Paris

Recipe for the perfect charming Frenchman.

Ingredients:
1 x sunny day
1 x old bicycle with chain that randomly pops off
1 x girl with grease-covered fingers

1. Put girl on bicycle and let her pedal at low speed for several minutes.
2. When corner café consistency is reached, pop chain off bicycle and stop pedaling.
3. Crouch girl down next to bicycle and let fumble for a few seconds.
Handsome waiter will pour out of café with a tray of drinks and rapidly distribute them to smiling patrons, shouting: “ Wait, miss, don’t touch that - I’m coming!”
4. Simply wrap waiter around little finger with dazzling smile and English accent and you’re done! Shake, stir and enjoy!

Alternative for tee-totalers:
Follow steps 1. and 2. but replace corner café with sports shop.
3. Get girl to roll bicycle into sports shop.
4. Fold handsome salesman over bicycle, as they both get their fingers full of grease.
5. Allow to simmer at low heat, as girl and salesmen go ‘round the back to wash their hands in the staff only area and he welcomes her to his country...

And that, ladies, is all it takes. The French are gourmets, after all.

thanx god...you what?

Ahhhh...the joys of bearing witness to germanic youth and their obsession with a language they master with great difficulty. Why is it that English is rated as being so cool in German-speaking culture? People who do not speak English, randomly lob English words into their speech like handgrenades. Lethally unintelligible for native English speakers, due to being both unexpected and mangled by an attractive(NOT!)accent.

Didn't I look like an eedjit the time the sound 'patch' made it's way into a perfectly normal German sentence and I had to ask 3 times what that was, while my language-lobe did backflips, trying to find the meaning of 'patch' as a German word. Fortunately, a fellow English-speaker was on hand to ungarble that sound as the English word 'BADGE'. Well, who knew?

Or that time a friend offered to make me some 'hammen tex' . She does not speak a word of English so again I was at a loss to link this sound to a German word I recognised. Eventually, completely exasperated by my lack of comprehension she yelled out: 'I thought English was your mother tongue?!' Oh, you were speaking ENGLISH?? In that case, I would love some Ham And Eggs, thank you.

My favorite, for now, was a black tank top I saw on a punky-looking nose-, eyebrow- and earring infested bloke on the Vienna U-bahn . Proudly displayed across his chest in bold, silver lettering were the words: THANX GOD I'M A VIP!

[PS German speakers pronounce it vvhipp, one word. Kuhl, huh?]

Exits & Entrances

I saw the world premiere of a South African play in LA a while back. Athol Fugard's EXITS AND ENTRANCES played at the very tiny Fountain Theatre. The play is autobiographical and interprets Fugard's friendship
with Andre Huguenet, an Afrikaans actor from Bloemfontein. Obviously, the backdrop is apartheid
South Africa and how each one tries to make sense of the circumstances they live in (a closet homosexual
Afrikaner actor and a playwright who wants to make a difference in his crazy country).

Great script, good performances - bummer neither actor
was South African or had ever been there. The actor
who played Fugard travelled the world DURING his
performance. He started somewhere in America with a
slight twang in his accent. Then he travelled to
Ireland and brought us the Northern and Southern Irish
accents in turn, passed through London's East End with
the Cockneys and brushed Australia on his way to New
Zealand, but somehow NEVER managed to come close to
South Africa! Well, I guess the route from the US via
the UK to NZ doesn't exactly pass by Africa. Although,
it was awesome how he managed to straddle several
continents in one sentence.

Obviously, your average theatre audience really knows
a good thing when they hear it because after the show
two girls dashed straight up to the actor and gushed,
" Your accent was GREAT!"
Thanks, but which one in particular?