je t'aime le creme glacee!

when my sister was in grade nine she was one of several students in her french immersion class who took part in an exchange program with students in paris. you know the deal: two weeks in paris over march break, see the eiffel tower and the louvre, eat croissant, then swap it up, show off the cn tower and get nail polish at ardene, then go your separate ways. so kate went to paris and several months later a girl named fanny came to bunk at 8 doonaree. i had already left home but i trust that my family made her feel welcome and took every effort to make her time away from france enjoyable and rewarding. my mom went so far as to attempt to converse with young fanny in french, something one might assume would be par for the course for a person living in a supposedly bilingual country, but then you never heard my mom speak french. it was not so much french as it was very polite english spoken through pursed lips and with a trace of pepe le peu. but it was an effort and i will not take that away from my mom. she tried, and valiantly at that, to speak a foreign tongue, but past the bonjours and sil vous plaits, her vocabulary was a mite limited. which might explain why when fanny, my mom, and kate were having some ice cream on a warm fall evening, my mom, with the purest intentions at heart, bravely exclaimed, "je t'aime le creme glacee!" what she was trying to say was that she loved ice cream, but what she actually said was "i love you the ice cream." her heart may have been in the right place, but the t' was not.

speaking english in southeast asia is not unlike speaking french with my mom. the intention, the determination, the thought: it's all there, just not all in the right place. of course, why would it be? the native language in these countries is thai, khmer, malay- not english. so why should they speak it? logic would dictate that they shouldn't have to and all travelers should instead take a stab at butchering the local language. but english is a bit of a schoolyard bully and has stomped its way across milk cartons, newspapers, and hair dye bottles the globe round. and so it has come to pass that for the past eight weeks chris and i have been highly entertained by the broken, well-meaning english printed along our trail.

it all began in beijing, where out hotel fire exit sign informed us that "if of the fire, the not old people before or children, but selfish to first, then other." funny, but you get the gist, right? plus, it's sometimes nice to get permission to be unabashedly selfish to first. and the permutations of this pidgin english have followed us, from promises of "computer internet stuffing!" to the aforementioned hair dye box advertising an alluring head of milkteabeige coloured tresses. glamorous, i'm sure. though the most entertaining so far has certainly been an email i received about a reservation request that i have copied verbatim below:

Sawasdee Brian Rieper,

I just want to say thanks a million for interested in Haad Khuad Resort. So that's I reply to answer your question about the bungalow is available on 12th of August 2008, it isn't?. I can not to tell you and too reconfirmation anything. Please you will be checking again when you will be arrive at here.

I am wishing to have a chance to service you and I hope to seeing you soon.

Thanks a million again.

Kind regards,
Haad Khuad Resort

what on earth does that mean you ask? i'm sorry, but i can not to tell you. and to reconfirmation anything? good luck. but i am wishing to have a chance to service you.

maybe chris and i are bad people for laughing, but it's so innocent, so well-meaning that you can't help but giggle. i do, however, wish my mom was still around so that i could call her and tell her that here in southeast asia, they love you the ice cream, too.