Apparently, it is very important to have "hobbies". I was made aware of this the painful, and embarassing way, when a Frenchwoman asked me over dinner what mine were.
I was not embarassed that I have practically none. It was the number of times I had to go "Beg your pardon?", because for the life of me I could not figure out what "o-bees" were. It also took a VERY long time to figure out that I had been agreeing that the food was good at "Glutton Square", not "glue-tone Square", the "o-ker center".
(There were other non-native English speakers, who carried on thusly, and I felt terribly confused throughout dinner. But it is small peanuts when you have someone ordering "r'violeee". Thankfully, no skinny men in tight Eurotrash clothes.)
Anyway, after a troubled silence - the expat crowd here follows a regimen of Yoga, pilates, diving, wakeboarding, partying, dragonboating, behaving badly, and god knows what else, to the last man and woman - I said "tennis".
Then, after a very long time, I triumphantly told the audience my "o-bee" was: writing. Bring on the publishing contracts, I say.
3 comments:
HAhahaha....does one actually need a hobby once they are of a certain age? I need to weave it into my 'two minute speech'.
Does learning how to swear in fluent hokkein count as a hobby?
~deviousDiv
Le Kua Simi?
haha. I pray you marry a frenchwoman - for some of you best blog entries revolve around all things french.....
Pray Fervently woman - I hear you say...
Deciphering the french can be an interesting sport - a college mate and I were taken aback and stood nonplussed, when our french lecturer invited us to the "fuck-ulty club" for lunch. We only breathed, when he added "you know near the beez-ad building (or some building I now forget)" - it was the faculty club.
It's true that I rip on the French, but I'm glad my luuurve comes shining right through.
CY
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