Month: October 2020

A foreign language phrasebook can be a lifesaver when you’re in a place where the local language is Greek to you (Athens, for instance).  Perhaps you’ve been in Copenhagen and were able to feel right at home when you could whip out the phrasebook and confidently say, “Jeg savn toilet tissue rask!” (“I need toilet tissue – quick!”)  

In the past few years, I have spent much time perusing foreign language phrasebooks (mostly French) and their cousins, beginner foreign language lesson books.  Both can be entertaining reading when you let your imagination run free. 

I began to imagine what might happen if a language phrasebook were placed in a time capsule, not to be unearthed until centuries later by archaeologists seeking clues as to what social life in the 21^st century was like.  Given only the written record of foreign language phrasebooks and lessons, how would they describe the inhabitants of this time in the distant past?

These future archeologists would deduce that 21^st century humans spent an inordinate amount of their time on public transportation and in hotels, restaurants and shops.  They were evidently focused on survival.  In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they seemed to hover at the base of the pyramid, devoting their time and energy to seeking food, shelter and the most basic needs.  Forget Self-Actualization and Fulfilling One’s Potential – These people were constantly poring over menus seeking something to eat, searching for a decent place to stay, and shopping for various personal items.

According to the phrasebook manuscripts, these ancient people were a forgetful and perpetually lost lot:

• I’ve lost my hat.
• I left my umbrella on the train.
• I cannot find my hotel.
• Where is my overcoat?
• Which way to the airport?
• I’ve lost my way.
• Where might I find public facilities?

Walking around disoriented, they were forever asking directions to the post office, a hospital, the bank, or the cinema.

They were also a very giving people.  One page of the phrasebook reads:

• John gave it to him.
• He gave it to me.
• I gave it to her.
• We gave it to you. (“Did they not know about antibiotics?” the archaeologists muse.)

And then there are the people we read about in the language lesson books – We’ll call them the inhabitants of “Language Lesson Land”, who are also a strange bunch, as seen from their lifestyles and conversations.

(Note: I possess a somewhat dated French language textbook.  All quotes below are the verbatim English translations straight from that book, although admittedly out of context…)

1.  The inhabitants of Language Lesson Land are very nosy and gossipy.  They constantly pester each other with intrusive personal questions.  Where do you live?  What is your phone number?  What are you doing?  Where are you going?  Are you married? Do you have any money? 

• Who was that woman I saw you with last night?
• She was my aunt who just arrived from Europe.  (Yeah, right…)

The hotel clerk is a little too familiar with the guest’s mail:

• Guest:  Is there anything for me?
• Clerk:   Yes, a postcard, two letters and a rather large package.  One of the letters comes from Italy and another from Spain.  The stamps are very beautiful!

• Guest:  Yes, that’s true!  Is there anything else?
• Clerk:   Yes, a registered letter.

Outside Language Lesson Land, you would get slapped if you asked this series of questions, say, in a bar:

• What is your name?
• What is your phone number?
• Where do you live?
• What are your prices?

2.  Not only do these people constantly ask personal questions, but they also dutifully answer any and every question they are asked.  They have no personal boundaries.  They are never offended by this intrusive invasion of privacy.   Just once, I’d like to hear one of them respond, “Casse-toi!”  (Bug off! [the clean translation])

They are very transparent and self-disclosing.  For instance, listen in on this casual conversation between a dietician and a businessman (who evidently just happened to run into each other on the street):

• Dietician:    Good morning, sir!
• Businessman:  I think I’m putting on weight.

• D:    Oh?  You’re not managing to lose weight?  Why not?
• B:         I’m always hungry.  I’m always thirsty.

• D:        Do you exercise regularly?  Seize every opportunity to eat salads.
• B:         And what must I not do?

• D:        Never choose cakes.  Never choose ice cream.  Never choose cheese.

3.  These people gossip about and comment on everything.  I picture Jacques and Eric leaning in and speaking in conspiratorial tones:

• Renee and Marcel live with their parents.
• They work in a bookshop.
• Yes, and they “go out” a lot. (air quotation marks gesture imagined)

Other catty remarks:

• He never works.
• Pierre works slowly.
• She exports nothing.
• Marcel does not play the piano.
• Alice is less humorous than Betty.
• She speaks more distinctly than Paul.

4.  People in Language Lesson Land can be blunt and tactless as well.  In one conversation, when Helene shares her New Year’s resolutions with Michel, he responds:

• “I’m sorry, I heard that last year!  I don’t want to discourage you, but I’m certain that you will never do anything!”

When a customer brings a faulty answering machine back to the shop, the shopkeeper says:

• “All of our products are of excellent quality.  If you haven’t had a single message in two weeks, the only explanation is that no one calls you!”  (Where’s Dale Carnegie when you need him?)

5.  These folks, all named Pierre, Luc, or Laurent, Nicole and Marie, are a very jaunty bunch.  They seem to spend most of their time in spirited and jocular conversations in cafes and discos.   

Listen to the banter of these two suave guys at the disco.  (I picture them in bellbottoms and shiny floral print shirts):

A:        Do you see that woman over there?

B:         Which one?  There are many of them.

A:        The pretty one with black hair.

B:         The one who dances with the old gentleman?

A:        Yes, that one.

B:         Well, she is pretty enough, and she dances well. 

A:        Do you know her?

B:         No I don’t.  And you?

A:        Neither do I, of course.  That’s why I’m asking you!

B:         OK.  I can see that she interests you.

A:        Let’s go see Louis.  He knows everybody!

B:         Yes, let’s!

6.  Language Lesson Land citizens live fully in the present.  “Carpe Diem!”, they would toast each other at the sidewalk café (if they spoke Latin instead of French).  They waste no time reflecting on the past, and they rarely set their sights on the future, other than discussing where they might dine that night.  I suspect that there is a more literate group of Language Lesson Land denizens who can carry on finely-nuanced conversations using the imperfect and present subjunctive, but they frequent other cafes in advanced lesson books that I’ve only dreamed about being able to comprehend.

In reality, of course, language phrasebooks and guides are very helpful.  I’ve compiled a list of actual items from phrasebooks that I find myself using quite often:

• Ou est le chat?     (Where is the cat?)
• J’ai besoin d’acide borique.         (I need boric acid.)
• Ou est le fronton?         (Where is the jai alai court?)
• Que diable voulez-vous?            (What the devil do you want?)
• Qu’ est-ce que l’amour?             (What is love?)

And these are useful phrases that I keep at the ready in case they are needed:

• Do you know where I can rent a typewriter?
• There are four of us but only three sleeping bags.  (Possible pick up line)
• Which ambulance do you prefer, this one or that one?

Here are some sentences that I’ve yet to use:

• Allez-vous me donner un bon caddy?     (Will you provide me with a good caddy?)
• Je resterai ici tout ete. Je voudrais une chamber qui donne sur l’ocean.        (I’ll be staying here all summer.  I’d like a room facing the ocean.)

Here are some I get tired of hearing or using:

• Laissez-moi tranquille ou j’applele un agent!      (Leave me alone or I’ll call a policeman!)
• Ouvrez vos bagages, s’il vous plait.        (Open your bags, please.)
• Je veux un avocat.         (I need a lawyer.
• Pouvez-vous pousser ma voiture?          (Can you give my car a push?)
• Il n’y a pas d-eau courant.         (There is no running water.)

Well, there are many other examples, but it’s time to close.  I’ve searched my

phrasebook for a statement both dramatic and profound with which to close these notes.  And I think the clear winner, there on page 86, is:

“Ma tante doit vomir!”

Thursday afternoon had finally arrived, and it was time to clock out.  We were in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and as in the rest of the Arab world, and the weekend was upon us.  We were completing a hectic week that had involved a high level of interaction with a group of Saudi Arabian senior executives, and ahead of us lay two free days before we repeated the process with another group the following week. 

We were three CCL facilitators and one training manager from the Saudi host company. We were discussing options for the evening, feeling like a group of high school guys with the keys to the family car.  One of the group decided to stay in for the night, and who could blame him?  Home base was a fabulous five-star hotel, owned by the Royal Family, a paradise of palm-studded seaside acreage, with a pool with waterfalls, a private beach, and numerous restaurants.  But outside the walls of our luxury cocoon, the modern capital city of Manama beckoned, the lights of its skyline twinkling three miles across the desert.

John and I joined Joe, a long-term U.S. American expatriate to Saudi Arabia.  Joe drove an old U.S. utility vehicle – a Blazer or Bronco or some such big rig – with two-tone paint, oversize wheels and a tattered interior.  As I climbed into the back seat, I made two automatic assumptions:  (1) That he was a safe driver experienced in the ways of Middle East driving, and (2) That he spoke Arabic, having lived for years in the region.  (The first would prove to be true but the second false.)

The three of us barreled out of the palatial front gates of the hotel, headed for a wild night of fun.  You need to realize that “wild” is a relative term.  On the “Wildness Continuum” of the United Sates, for instance, Manama would fall somewhere between Little Rock, Arkansas and North Platte, Nebraska.  But when the standard of comparison is Bahrain’s neighbor, Saudi Arabia, it’s more like Las Vegas.  Here, alcohol is legal, and live bands can play rock music (albeit both restricted to hotel bars).  OK, that’s about all the wildness there is–but remember the benchmark.

Manama, home to 600,000 citizens, is a modern city with nice hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, and a lively souk.  Because part of the U.S. Fleet docks there and it is a popular holiday destination for well-heeled Arabs, it has a thriving tourist industry.  It is separated from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by a 25 kilometer causeway, but in some ways it feels light years away.

The main Dens of Iniquity here are hotel bars, where alcohol is served and live music blares into the night.  There is usually a bandstand and dance floor, complete with silvery disco ball and strobe lights, and there are tables receding into the smoky darkness, where Arab men, dressed in traditional white thobe and checkered scarves, sip beers and watch from the protective  anonymity of the back tables.  Many of the music groups are from the Philippines, who, under contract with the hotel, spend an indentured season there, rehearsing by day and performing by night, rarely leaving the hotel and even then only by permission of the management.  A Filipino band in Bahrain is typically three guys (guitar, bass, and keyboard) fronted by two or three young female singers, clad in short, tight sequined dresses, who dance and sing American pop standards in English.  Between songs, the patter is in halting English, but when they break into “Proud Mary”, it is might as well be John Fogerty singing those words.

It was to such a night spot that we set out that warm spring evening, but we never made it, thanks to a moment of distraction and a fateful turn of events.  A simple word of advice:  If you must be in a car accident, try to avoid Bahrain.

It was a simple U-turn less than a mile from the hotel, prompted by a suddenly-remembered-left-behind-something, on a two-lane street in the rush hour dusk.  At the precise moment that Joe slowed and swung into the turn, a large panel van decided to pass on the left, and we turned into the path of the van and were broadsided on the left.  The two vehicles came to a screeching halt in the middle of the busy street.  Adrenalin pumped and hearts raced as time seemed momentarily to stand still.  Because we were encased in tons of Detroit automotive steel, we sustained only a side panel crumple and escaped bodily injury.  The large van also looked to have sustained only minor damage. We and the van driver rolled out of our doors to face this new turn of events, as traffic immediately began to back up in both directions.  The three of us gathered in the center of the street and spoke quietly to each other before approaching the other driver.  John and I, deferring to Joe the “local”, asked “What do we do now?”  Joe shrugged and said “Hell if I know!”  A sickening panic set in at the realization that, like us, Joe was a foreigner, across the bridge and the border from his adopted country, unable to speak the local language, and all of us definitely in deep doo-doo.  (I don’t know the Arabic phrase but am sure it exists.) 

Of course Joe felt bad and quickly said to us, “You guys walk back to the hotel – I can handle this”.  But after being tempted by that option for a brief second, we dismissed the offer as ridiculous.  This would be a “one for all and all for one” deal – the Three of us Musketeers would stick together.

The van that hit us was a large windowless panel van, the type used in the U.S. by plumbers and UPS, and this one was transporting South Asian laborers back from a construction site.  (Bahrain has a large number of immigrant  laborers from such countries as India and Pakistan, who cling to the bottom rungs of the social ladder and are employed in many low-level jobs.  “The attitude that they were deemed “second class citizens” would not be an overstatement.)

Rather than approaching us the driver went around to the back of the van and opened the rear door.  As he did so, a stream of young men began to pour out.  All were clad in identical sky blue jumpsuits, and they kept coming and coming – it was like a circus clown car – until a total of seventeen had emerged from the rear door.  (They were crammed unbelted on benches in the windowless back.)  They trotted single file to the side of the road, where they squatted in a straight line, looking straight ahead stoically.  Several of them, however, began to dramatically dab dirty handkerchiefs to an elbow or forehead, but there was no blood in evidence.  The driver walked over to check them out, and the dramatics increased as the injured showed him their wounds.  (Remember, as a child, when you slightly cut a finger and squeezed it to make it bleed to increase the effect?  That was the sense I had at this moment.)

Several passing motorists had already called the police on their mobile phones, so by the time the other driver approached us, a police officer on a motorcycle was pulling up.  Luckily, the young officer spoke limited English, but the other driver had the advantage of speaking to him in Arabic.  By this time, darkness had settled in.  John and I stepped back several yards along the roadside, feeling that our contribution was minimal at this point.  We watched the traffic back up into the distance in both directions.

As we were surveying the situation from this vantage point, a Mercedes sedan pulled up to the curb, and two well-dressed South Asian men got out and walked over to us.  (We later learned that they were the owners of the company that owned the van and employed the laborers).  They had been following the crew at some distance back from their worksite.)   One sidled up to me and asked what had happened.  I said, “Well, we made a U-turn, and…”  He quickly interrupted me, wagging his index finger in my face like a metronome, saying, “Oh, U-turn is veddy veddy bad!  Veddy veddy bad!” In this instance, I guess he had a point…

As John and I watched helplessly, the police officer talked to Joe.  He was listening to English, a language of which he had mastered only the crude basics. Joe was saying:

 “Officer, I am certain that this driver is obviously incompetent.   Do you think I didn’t look back before carefully making a U-turn?  This other driver obviously attempted to recklessly and illegally overtake me on the left. I’m sure you will take me at my word on this.  I would not execute such a maneuver quickly and without looking.  Thanks for your consideration.”

 The Bahraini policeman was probably hearing something like:

“Officer…I am…incompetent…I … did not look…recklessly and illegally…take me…execute…quickly…without…consideration.”

The van driver then fervently pleaded his case in Arabic.  We stepped in to have a quick huddle with Joe, and when we turned around, the two Indian “owners” were filling the police officer in on their account of the events.  He wrote and nodded enthusiastically as they gestured and pointed, indicating directions of approach, points of impact, and extent of injuries, obviously giving specific details that might have been cogent had they actually been present at the time of the collision.

At the direction of the police officer , the driver and workers piled back into the van, which sped off down the street.  Joe conferred with the officer and returned to us, saying that, since several of the passengers were injured, we must follow the officer to the hospital until the extent of the injuries was determined, and then to the local police station nearby for questioning.

 My expectations for the evening had been that by this time I would be sitting drinking a beer and listening to “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”.

Needless to say, when you are in a strange country and don’t speak or understand the language, you are constantly working with incomplete data.  We followed the policeman’s motorcycle with some difficulty, because he was erratically zipping in and out of traffic ahead of us, going to who knows where – a hospital? a police station?  I figured that we’d find out.

Luckily, we caught a glimpse of our police escort turning left some distance ahead.  We followed him into a dark parking lot next to a hospital.  We parked, and he motioned “come on”, so we followed him into the hospital.  He talked to the hospital personnel, to us, and again to the van driver, who had delivered the injured to the emergency room.  After 30 minutes, he ordered us to accompany him across a parking lot to the local police substation.

Police hut would be more accurate — it was a small two-room building with a parking lot adjacent to it.  He motioned for us to come in.  (From this point on, no one involved spoke a word of English.)  Everyone was polite but very serious.  None of us was tempted to clown around or crack a joke.  There were four or five police officers around, several carrying automatic weapons.  The average age seemed to be about 17 years of age, but, given the circumstances, these guys came across as very mature.  Though looking young, every one of them sported a huge bushy moustache.  A youthful-looking officer sat behind a simple desk, a ledger book the size of a library dictionary before him.  A cigarette with a long ash dangled from his lips.  Smoke swirled in the harsh fluorescent tubes that buzzed overhead as he slowly and meticulously transferred the reporting officer’s data to the ledger book with a stubby pencil.  Since Joe was the driver, he was the focus of attention and answered what few questions they asked.  The quiet was deafening.

John and I walked outside into the warm desert night and stood on the porch looking out over the police station parking lot.  As we squinted into the darkness, we saw several young police officers talking animatedly in Arabic to someone – We realized that it was the ever-present and exceedingly charismatic Other Driver, who, in my mind, was clearly emerging as the Plaintiff in this developing case.  All of a sudden, they all burst into laughter at something that had been said, and the van driver high-fived one of the policemen.  I turned to John and remarked, “Man, that can’t be good.”

We were there for at least an hour before Joe came out to announce that we now had to accompany the officer to another police station across town.  We hopped into the dented Land Barge and took out in pursuit of the motorcycle cop disappearing into traffic ahead of us.

We drove for what seemed like an hour (probably 15 minutes) through dark streets, in areas of the city that stood in stark contrast to our luxury hotel oasis.  Disoriented by the circuitous route, we had no clue where we were as we pulled into the parking lot of the police station somewhere on the outskirts of town.  We were led into the building, down a long corridor, starkly-lit and painted in that universal institutional green of government buildings.    The officer led us to a waiting area, where he motioned for John and me to sit and for Joe to come with him through a door to…who knew where?  We would sit there for an hour and a half, having no clue as to the eventual outcome of this adventure or the well-being of our friend somewhere behind that door.

We sat watching a shift change, as officers came in, exchanged pleasantries, laughed loudly at each other’s comments and stories, and then wearily trudged out to head home for the night.  By this time, it was approaching 11 o’clock, and the desk sergeant changed places with his replacement and walked out.  The new guy eyed us warily but soon forgot about us and went about his business.

When Joe emerged, he looked a little more relaxed than before.  He explained that, because there were injuries, this was a serious offense.  Luckily, all wounds were superficial.  And it was fortunate, he had been told, that these were immigrant laborers and not Bahraini citizens, whose lives are evidently much more valuable than theirs .   Even so, his car was being confiscated until his court appearance, scheduled for the next day.  We were free to go, but without the benefit of our wheels.  This was a challenge, since we were at least 5 miles from our hotel.  The desk officer pointed to a pay phone, and we called the hotel, who promised to send someone.  Fifteen minutes later, a black Mercedes pulled up, and we recognized the burly hotel security guard who stepped out.  As we walked out, he spoke to the desk officer briefly, and they both threw back their heads and laughed heartily.  Though I don’t understand Arabic, I think I got the punchline of the joke (us).  We sat silently in the back of the hotel car as we were chauffeured at breakneck speed through the deserted streets on Manama.

Fast forward to the next evening.  That day, Joe had appeared before the Bahraini judge, who leniently fined him and gave his vehicle back.  It was now time to attempt our night on the town once again.  As we walked out the front entrance of the hotel, we looked across the desert darkness toward the Manama lights beckoning us.  Without even thinking, we all simultaneously shouted to the doorman: “taxi!”