Call Me (Not)
Quiet evening. You’re at home, and suddenly, the phone rings. You :
a) Run towards the phone, dropping whatever was in your hands, and hope for a good conversation with a friend
b) Abruptly end the conversation you were having on your cell phone in order to pick up the landline - calls are a serious business here.
c) Bury your face in your hands and sight : “not again…“.
I’m clearly a “c”.
It all started in high school. Suddenly, the phone became more than a black plastic thing. Yet most of time I despised it. Why wasn’t it ringing ? Should I call him ? But he said he would call. Why wasn’t he calling then ? Was the phone broken ? Off the hook ? Power outage in the neighborhood maybe ? He did say he would ring, right ?
By the time I finished high school, he still hadn’t called and I had grown to dislike phones. Stupid useless objects if you want my opinion.
I then got my first job in Hong Kong. My biggest challenge wasn’t being an 18 years old lost in Tsimshatshui: it was to handle my daily duties at Takyi company. I was an office worker, a baby one. I could barely switch on a computer at that time but I had the language skills. So they let me learn.
One morning, Lia, my boss, came to me :
– Now you arrive at 8:00 and take care of the phone for Qingqing.
Qingqing was the receptionist, the only one in the office who was actually from mainland China. The others were from Macao, Hong Kong, Malaysia, or at least big Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai. But Qingqing was from the countryside - god knows what or who brought her to Hong Kong. As a result, she was the office’s poor little girl. The other receptionists, Isabella and Celia, made fun of the way she dressed, the way the talked and the food she ate. She could never get things right - and I could tell she tried hard. Like me. This was probably why I was paired up with Qingqing. In my manager’s mind, I was a total failure. I was too fat (by Chinese standards), too tall (by her standards), my nose and belly-button piercings made her cringe every time she looked at me and I wasn’t wearing enough make-up. My clothes were odd too: Lia had been to Paris twice and she clearly remembered French women wore Chanel dresses and carried Louis Vuitton handbags - not Levis’ jeans and handmade tote bag. All in all, I deserved to come earlier to work to cover for Qingqing.
The next morning, I got up before my two roommates and walked to work. I didn’t really feel like I was an hour early anyway, since Hong Kong looked busy 24/7. I picked up a couple of coconut bread on my way and arrived in front of the intimidating building in Tsimshatsui. I keyed the code in (was it 1-2-3-4 or 4-3-2-1 ? Can’t remember anymore…) and switched on the lights. A minute later, I was on front of my computer and the phone started to ring.
– Good morning, how can I help you ?
– …
– Hello ?
– …
Hung up. Oh well.
I ate my breads. Checked my emails. Went for a smoke in the hallway a couple of time. At 9:00, the phone had rang about twenty times but I had no messages. People kept on hanging up on me.
Bracing myself for my Lia’s lecture. If I didn’t have any message for Qingqing, then it must be because I didn’t show up at 8:00 as agreed but at 8:55.
But she surprised me. Instead of mentioning my laziness (because she clearly remember that when she visited Paris, French were less efficient than Japanese, therefore they were lazy - some kind of genetic problem that I must have had inherited because I was very French indeed - are you following me ?) , she blamed my English:
– What do you say on the phone ?
– Er… “Hi, how can I help you?“
– Dumb ! They don’t want to talk to English girls like you! They want Chinese, speak Chinese!
She actually made a point. Although I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly tagged as English, I should have spoken Chinese. Silly me… I had assumed since we mostly worked in English, I could speak it on the phone.
Lucky me, Qingqing hadn’t arrived yet, so I had a chance to make up for it.
– 喂、怎么可以帮助你吧?
– …
– Dumb, dumb !
What?
Oh yeah, that was my Lia behind me.
– I say Chinese, you speak pǔtōnghuà ! Chinese, I want you to say Hong Kong Chinese !
Right. Cantonese, guǎngdōnghuà. Another battle ahead…
– But I don’t speak Cantonese! I learned Mandarin! It says on my resume: Mandarin!
– Language is will. If you want to speak Cantonese, you speak Cantonese. But of course, you never try to speak Cantonese because your mind doesn’t want to speak Cantonese. Cantonese is more better. A lot.
Lia was from Malaysia. She has been living in Hong Kong for twenty years and although she spoke perfect Cantonese (as far I knew), she still couldn’t read any Chinese characters. I had to read her the menu every time we went to restaurant together. This was our biggest battle: I should speak Cantonese and I didn’t. I wasn’t even trying according to her.
Lia took a piece of paper and scribbled some pinyin (phonetic Cantonese) for me.
– This is what you say.
Good timing. Already, the phone was ringing:
– 我…点可以帮助你？
– Isabella 小姐系唔系口？
– er… 等一下啊！
Good news: people talked to me now. And my accent seemed alright. Bad news: outside the introduction, I still wasn’t speaking - or understanding for that matters - Cantonese. Fuck. I only got the name of the receptionist in the sentence that followed. Thanks Isabella for choosing a Western name. I pressed 1 to transfer the call.
The following months were misery. Every time the office had lunch, I was told to stay at my desk to take messages. My Cantonese didn’t improve but I quickly learned to spot names in the long sentences that usually followed my - now perfect - introduction line. Every time the phone rang, I felt like unplugging it and running away. I was still shy and I hated Lia for making me do that. I hated the phone for ringing that often.
When I arrived in Canada, I faced another problem. I spoke both official languages, which was already a good thing. Although it was taking me a lot of energy to understand English clearly over the phone. Without body language, I was often lost in the details. And come to think of it, Quebec accent didn’t work that well either. Words sounded distorted, I couldn’t tell whether the person was joking and numbers… well, numbers don’t usually agree with me, but accented numbers were worse.
Too bad I had secured a contract in a call center.
My phone was ringing almost non-stop, and I couldn’t use the pause button too much otherwise my supervisor was behind me back within seconds. But my head was constantly pounding. As soon as I was seeing the blue “French” button, I prayed that I’d get some big cities people, who usually spoke with less accent. English line? Please, not another guy from fucking middle of nowhere town with a bad connexion!
The misery last a few months. I then worked as a receptionist, a secretary, a salesperson and I finally got a job as a teacher. Best part of it is, I never ever have to answer the phone. I do everything by email and I usually tell phones lovers that I can’t be reached easily because I’m in a classroom 6 hours a day. They don’t always understand me : “why don’t you get a cell phone then?“. I guess I should have them to read this posts.
And you. Yes, you. Please don’t call me. Just write something below.
My mom works for customer service (billing) at DHL and she actually goes home crying some days. She said it’s the most stressful job she’s ever had…..and she only speaks one language
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Brilliant. Reminds me of some of the stuff that went on when I was a customer service manager. Oh! The unadulterated horror!
LOL! I can completely understand your aversion to the phone! To tell you the truth, I hate the phone too, always have … after years as a telemarketer, customer service, fundraiser … I associate phones with working - when I’m not working I’d rather get an email. I don’t carry a cell phone myself, and everyone says the same thing to me.
So what is your phone number again…? LOL
You survived a nasty ‘Cantonese obsessed’ supervisor in Hong Kong, the heavily accented numbers in Quebec and an series of jobs that requires too much stereotyped communication,continuous smiling and -oh my god- excess use of phones!
All of a sudden your current job seems a lot more glorious and certainly pleasantly “phoneless” doesnt it:)
Good to know you have found something you really like to do(except commenting on my blog that is , LOL)
Take care!
Haha, I’m one of those Malaysians who speak a couple of Chinese dialects but can’t read the papers. I can write my name and some simple Chinese New Year greetings though, but not read an entire article or the menu.
That’s why I don’t fancy going to Hong Kong many times (unlike my Mum who calls HK her “second home” though we’ve never stayed there, she just loves HK)!
simply great again…as always!
I’ve been moving lately, to a new place and settling in. I don’t blog as much, but I’ll get back into it as I get settled into this new place.
I just have been letting myself rest a little before I begin the onslaught of blogging again…it’s been a rough ride.
keep up the good work on this amazing blog…one of my favorites
if I ever did a Customer Service (phone) job, there’d be roses growing on my grave by now!
Keshi.
I think you deserve three medals!!! LOL!
I tried to call you, but no answer? Well, it might be because I’m from Norway and called in the morning and then it was midnight at your place
Reading your story, I don’t blame you for having phonephobia, and I’m impressed with your language capability!
Thanks for your visit and nice compliments on my blog. I love to share about our culture and traditions and its even more interesting to do so with people who have quite a bit of experience from around the world like you.
PS: I tried to click your menu buttons on top as I like to check ‘Who..’, ‘About…’ and such when visiting new blogs, but it didn’t work?
These days am so frustrated with callers, if I don’t know who’s calling me as in look at the number, I let the machine take it. If it’s important enough, they’d leave a message. I know, am bad for screening calls, but hey, life’s a juggle, I oughta prioritize somewhere!
Lori: I feel for your mum ! I know what working in customer service is like… she must be sick of the phone at the end of the day !
Gary: I’m waiting for your horror stories
Ghosty: funny eh! People who hate the phone like me often have a story of working over the phone…
Deadpoolite: I survived indeed, and that’s actually quite fun to think about that after a few years. But trust me, I wasn’t laughing at first…
Pelf: that’s funny ! How come Malaysians can speak some Chinese then ? Sorry, I don’t know much about Malaysian… just studying mainland China took me 12 years, so not much time for the rest of Asia
Jorge: yeah, I read about your parking problem…
Moving takes time, and frankly, you spend so much energy on your blogs I can perfectly understand you don’t comment or read all! I still remember that screenshot of your RSS feed… God ! Yet it’s good to have you around once in a while. I value your opinion, you know that..
Keshi: Absolutely ! Stay away from these !
OldOldLady Of The Hills: the saddest thing actually was the look of my paycheck… no matter in what currency !
RennyBA: sorry, I was out
I mean, hiding under the bed, that is.
I’ll be back on your blog for sure. I love cultures and I don’t know much about Nordic countries as I said, so I’d love to learn more ! I like the way you qrite too, you sound very passionate.
I fixed the stupid tabs now…
Rads: I don’t even have an answering machine. I’m that phobic about the phone !
Hey Zhu,
I am also a c) lol…it’s terrible! Whenever the phone rings I say “quem é este para me encher o saco?” (did you get that? It’s a Brazilian expression).
LOL I loved your description as per opposition to your chinese co-worker, Quingquing: delightful!
I loved coconut bread: yummy!
Amazing post: I loved it, I laughed at lot (sorry, I know it’s your life, but I couldn’t help it…you wrote it in a very amusing way) lol :).
Cheers, girl
Hey Zhu!!! Just a little message to let you know that I have presented you with an award… Please pop by to collect it when you have time. Best wishes, Graham
@zhu: There are Malaysian Chinese who can speak Chinese but not write it due to a couple of reasons, e.g.:
(1) They were sent to a national school which uses the Malay language as the main medium of instructions, which means that they aren’t Chinese educated.
(2) Their parents don’t speak Chinese, they speak English at home.
(3) In Melaka, the majority of Chinese are actually of the Baba Nyonya heritage (they are Chinese but they speak Malay), and these Baba Nyonyas do not speak Chinese.
In other words, the national language in Malaysia is Malay, and the second language is probably English. Hence not all Chinese speak Chinese
Boy can I ever relate. My motto is why phone when you can email ever so much easier? Maybe it is the writer in me, I don’t know. But I’ve always hated the phone because so much of personal communication is non-verbal.
Great blog, I love the design. I’ll be back for more!
Hello Zhu!Nice to meet you and thank you for the message you left on my blog.
i enjoyed reading your post,although some were complicating for me to understand,I bet bcoz its my first time here,too?well,this explains why you asked me if I was a japanes,actually im not,im from the philippines,married to a japanese with two kids and permanent resident of japan now,and im here for 17 long years!
I can relate a little with the hardship of adjustment,but good of you coz you could speak and read chinese,(but dont speak at all?haha!) funny,but I heard that French people dont even bother to speak english even though they know how to do it
well,good luck to you!Hope to see you again next time,and if you like,we could exchange links so we could visit always each other? drop me a line then!
Happy Halloween!!
ghee
Loved it! Brilliantly written! You are an amazing person, I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes with that Cantonese obsessed woman. I don’t much like phones either, but I do have a cell phone - mostly so I can play games on it while I wait for the bus.
Woohoo…LOL!! Actually, before you’ve mentioned about speaking in Cantonese, I was wondering whether you can speak in Cantonese since you’ve mentioned that you worked in Hong Kong…he he he…
Anyway, I understand what you’ve gone through during those working days because I’ve worked as a Receptionist and Hotel Reservations Department before…So, you could imagine I’d talk on the phone every second!! Sometimes when I was at home I always hear the phone’s ringing, but actually it’s not…and most of the times I was too tired to talk!!:smile:
Hi Zhu,
Thanks a lot!!! for visiting my ( Dutch/English)blog, you were wondering where the stairs (photo on my blog ) were? well we walked many stairs on our trip (oktober) to the SOUTH of ITALY named SICILY, its very hilly there, so therefore I posted some ’stairs-photo’s’ ( also because I felt on my ass haha!)
Its so interesting (funny too) to read about your daily (telephone) life haha! You seemed to me an excellent writer, good for my English too…. Its so real ,the way you write…like a movie or a book, its very well done, is writing your proffesion?
I like to visit your blog because I would like to know ore about life in OTTAWA, my family/niece recently moved to OTTAWA, but I did not find out more about the city yet, so I am always glad to find out some more abut canadian life.
Well you can come back anytime to my blog, if you like travelling and photography, and when you want a “LOOK THROUGH MY DIGITAL EYES”…?
Many greetings and I hope to see you back
JoAnn (from Holland/Europe)
Oh, how I recognize this. I’ve spent a lot of years in phone - in an IT helpdesk. Phew! No wonder I don’t like to be in phone at home…. *giggles*
One time a Danish man called. Have you ever heard Danish? Even for a Swede like me, it’s very difficult to understand and especially if they have accent. Luckily the man had humor, so we laughed ourselves through the call. I was suppose to spell out an address to him… Totally impossible, we took it letter by letter and yet I was not sure it was right…. *giggles*
BTW: You’re scary welcome to our big cyber Halloween Party tomorrow, Wednesday the 31th - hope to see you!
PSsst. Don’ forget to bring some other monsters with you…. *giggles*
This is funny and kinda echoes my feelings. I worked with telecommunication R&D for 5 years you always dabbled with phones and calls. Hearing the phone ring at home or the mobile ring away from work was like bringing work home and stressing about it.
Max : so here is another thing we have in common ! I kinda got the expression… but I’m not sure people will understand it here, I’ll probably have to stick to swear in English and French !
Graham : lucky me ! I’ll check that out right away !
Pelf : thanks for the explanation ! I never though Malaysians could speak anything else than Malay or English (which is quite widespread everywhere!) and I was a bit confused yesterday.
Chinese is weird eh… a lot of people can speak really well but can’t write - it really is two separate things. I’m lucky I learned both at the same time !
Charlotte: thanks for visiting ! You’re so right, a lot of things can be misinterpreted over the phone… it’s not the most efficient mean of communication in my opinion.
Ghee : thanks for the explanation ! I know immigrating so Japan is very hard (that’s what I heard anyway), so I was wondering whether you were Japanese…
Yeah, bit complicated at first, read the “about me” and you’ll probably get it more - my life is quite complicated but I like it this way !
Theresa : to be honest, the woman was really annoying. I didn’t exaggerate anything here… Hong Kong is a good memory now but at the time, I felt really lost…!
Choc Mint Girl : nope, no Cantonese for me… Mandarin is often taught because it’s China’s official language. And Cantonese IS really different !
If you worked customer service positions, I bet you totally understand… I like being a customer best !
JoAnn : Thanks for visiting back ! You have beautiful pics in your blogs, I’ve already added you to my feed
No, I’m not a writer… just a teacher ! But thanks for the praise, I appreciate !
Captain : your blog template was amazingly scary, your blog really caught my eye yesterday !
Nope, never heard Danish… nor Swedish come to think of it ! But I can understand a bit, a lot of people have accents here in Canada (me included !) and communication can be… er…challenging at times !
Thanks for the Halloween invitation !
The Pilgrim : so I guess we all hate the phone because of work ! I can totally understand you !
I worked in a call center for a while and it was bad enough when I had to talk to someone from Texas. I can’t imagine trying to work with people whose language you don’t speak all day over the phone.
Great post…
I envy you! You speak multiple languages and have lived in interesting places too. I would like to get an opportunity to live in some other Asian countries. The only two countries I know really well are India and the USA.
hello again,Zhu!
I got you tagged! there`s always a first time,right?
Click here!!
Thanx!
enjoy your night!
ghee
ghee’s last blog post..Education Or Money??
Zhu: Can I tweak around with the dinner meme you tagged me with? Just a little bit perhaps? Thanks
rads’s last blog post..the finesse, the achievers and me
Ha. Great story. And I don’t like using the phone either. To some people the ringing of a phone is something that must be dealt with - immediately. Not for me. If I don’t feel like talking, I simply let the phone ring.
Art’s last blog post..Catching Up?
Ha Ha… Zhu that’s fabulous. What a life cycle u hv gone through. I cudnt learn even 1 word in mandarin yet..but u tried so many accents. Amazing.
Well even after all ur warnings, I’m planning to talk 2 u in phone….
CM-Chap’s last blog post..Unnoticed Changes Of Our Life
Diesel : somehow, being able to distance myself because I wasn’t speaking the language, was probably what saved me…
Shantanu : well, that’s already pretty good ! Two huge countries and two really different cultures… Lucky you !
Rads: please do so !
CM-Chap: it’s okay, call me… I’ll recover
That Chinese job sounds so stressful! Wow!
I’m another one who isn’t a big fan of the phone. I would much rather email. No cell phone either.
What have I been doing (and some link loves)?…
I have had a very slow week, in terms of writing, publishing, commenting and blog-hopping. In fact, I haven’t been spending as much time as I would love to on my blog because I have been too caught up with writing up my thesis. I have set myself …
[...] really don’t think she will do that great as a student. And.. and I hate the phone. Remember Call Me (Not), or how I became a crazy Malaysian woman’s slave in Hong Kong? I had vowed to never touch [...]
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I thought people in Hong Kong speak Japanese?
Maybe I’m wrong…
Ulquiorras last great read…The Under Construction Rhyme
thats so funny.
i moved to India when i was 11 from the UK. didn’t understand any indian languages for 2 years - complete nightmare!
I feel your pain.
Living Off Dividends & Passive Incomes last great read…How To Start Multiple Businesses
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