Friday, February 23, 2024

Woke language chaos, among other things.

So, a few weeks ago at work at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, it was (Chinese New Year), and since there's a bunch of (Thai Chinese) in (Thailand), (Thai) people often know historic versions of (Chinese) customs, and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker and my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones set me up with a (Chinese) saying that means "fat red envelope" (i.e., a traditional gift envelope that's super-full of money), and they had me go in back and tell the one (Thai Chinese) cook that.

They also were telling me about how it's a (Thai Chinese) thing to set up a big meal for your ancestors way early in the morning, and everyone does it and puts it on social media now, though they were talking to our one (Chinese-American) coworker and he was saying that he's never heard of that particular tradition, whether here or in (China).

(We all agreed that the [Chinese] [Communists] must have done away with that, just like they did away with this one [Chinese] [Buddhist] vegetarian festival that's historically [Chinese] but is no longer celebrated there, and is only celebrated in [Thailand], instead.)

"I heard you want a big red envelope," the one (male) restaurant owner said, too, towards the end of the night, when he came out from in back and surprised me and handed me a red envelope with a twenty in it, before going around to everyone else and giving them red envelopes, too, for the holiday.

Anyhow, because of all the stuff like that, we were all talking about holidays, and my (Guatemalan) coworkers were telling me how they don't celebrate (Halloween) in (Guatemala).

"Que bien" ('How good'), I was like, and then I intoned, "Demones" ('Demons'), and at that I nodded once decisively, while holding the eyes of my one (Pentecostal) (Guatemalan) coworker, who looked me back straight in the eye and seemed very seriously in agreement.

A bit later, too, I was observing to my one (younger) (female) (Guatemalan) worker in my (baby) (Spanish) that I've never understood why in (Spanish) you have senora for a married woman and senor for a man, while there's senorita for an unmarried woman but no senorito for an unmarried man ("Un hombre sin esposa").

"Because there's no word like that," my one (Pentecostal) (Guatemalan) coworker stepped in and more or less said immediately, in (Spanish), playing the man-slash-authority in the situation.

"I know," I was like. 

And then, I was like, "!Sexismo!", at which my one (younger) (female) (Guatemalan) coworker just nodded, knowingly. 

Then, I was like, "Necesitamos cambiar el idioma" ('We need to change the language').

And, at that too, she just nodded, knowingly.

Then, she started calling me and some of the other (Guatemalan) men senorito, which she has now done on several occasions, and although they don't say anything, it seems to make a few of them bristle.

"You can call me guapo," said the one (Guatemalan) guy who we started the diablo joke about, too, when she first said it to him.

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