Fairy Wands Don't Translate Well
At the hardware stores in Montana, where I shop all too frequently as I try to keep a century old timber frame house from being blown by fierce winter winds into the Montana gravel like so many of the houses around it have, Rose developed a routine. She would shop for a new fairy wand.She'd go to the dowel box, and carefully turn over the different diameter dowels until she found one true, usually colored on one tip, and of just the right heft and length. It would be her new wand, at least for a few hours of playing fairy queen. On special occasions I even indulged her with the nice aluminum ones.
Well, we were replacing all our locks on our new house the other day (I found a full set of house keys, two of them actually, hidden inside the water main shutoff box) at the local hardware store. Rose found a box of really cool rattan or young bamboo dowels, each with a knot at the end. Cured very nicely, and even with a glossy finish. Really cool fairy wands if ever there were any.
She carefully tried a bunch out, after tentatively asking permission, and we were both really excited to reenact another of our Montana traditions with a new Malaysian spin.
When we went to pay, the boss lady was not so stoked. There was a look of obvious disgust on her face. She was openly shocked that I was buying that and talking about it with my daughter.
My immediate thought was that it must be a tool for something disgusting. Was the peculiar knot for snagging clogged toilets and extracting the . . ahem. . obstruction? Was it used to clean out greasy kitchen pipes? What use could be so sickening as to make a lady who was taking hundreds of dollars from me recoil in disgust?
Through our mixed languages, the only thing I could understand was "switch."
Hmmmm. . . I thought. . . She wants me to switch to a different one?
I did so.
She was equally disgusted.
I tried a third.
Still shocked. Now other people watching too.
"Not for your son." She kept saying. Son / daughter is a common mixup for Chinese speakers. I listened more carefully.
It was more of a question: "Not for your daughter!!???"
"Yeah lah! I replied. "Ta yao wan he zhe ge wan ju." Broken white guy Chinese for she wants to play with this toy. I think.
"What is it?" I asked.
She grabbed it. "A switch." With three vicious strikes she swatted the air, "For cats."
Now it was my turn to be shocked and disgusted. They have a bin of rattan canes for beating cats at Chinese hardware stores.
My shock must have been obvious.
I couldn't believe it.
She registered my disappointment. I'm not sure if she was seeking to assuage my discomfort, or make a sale, but she finished her explanation with pride and finality:
"Dogs also can lah!"