Alla linea purpura

Last night, on the el, I sat across from an elderly Italian couple. I couldn't understand their discussion, but the woman had a transit map in her lap. She must've caught me looking because, after a few stops, she came over, sat next to me, and asked where she had to change trains. In Italian.

I don't actually speak Italian. But I'm geekboy enough to give it a shot. I might've done better with Spanish, actually, since many Italians seem to understand it well and vice-versa. (I love to tell the story, however, about the opera singer travelling in Argentina who asked for "due uova con burro" and was politely informed by his puzzled waiter that donkeys don't actually lay eggs.) Nonetheless, she seemed to comprehend that this train was running espresso to Belmonte where she could change to the linea bruna.

She thanked me enthusiastically, returned to her seat, and communicated this to her companion, who responded with scepticism and glanced at me with a wariness verging on contempt. He struck me as much too proud to ask for directions, but his stubbornness didn't seem to bother her at all, which amused me. I imagined them playing tourists in Chicago like this, she breathlessly greeting strangers and him drawn grumpily in her wake.

monshu was very amused by the swathe I cut through the foreign communities in San Francisco during our visit. At one point, when I was waiting for dim sum carry out from Jasmine Tea House, the server asked if I wanted anything and I said, "A Chinese newspaper." He told me they didn't have one but nevertheless tried to rustle one up in the back. After he'd handed me a copy of the Sing Tao daily, he regarded me incredulously and asked, "You can read Chinese?" I told him, "Just a little", holding my fingers about an inch apart. He looked at my hand and said, "But that's as much as I can read!"

Then I stopped in a neighbouring coffee shop, which I had guessed was run by Koreans. I called out, "Annyeng haseyo!" and the woman behind the counter greeted me in return and responded with a phrase which I figured from context must mean "What can I get you?" (I think the first word was mu lul "what [direct object]".) Can you believe I don't even remember how to say "A cup of coffee"? I think it's "Han khep khophi", but I wouldn't bet much on that.

But that's me: A linguistic dilettante through and through. Friend to many tongues, master of none.

Earth Under Iron Road

I came home on Tuesday to find two copies of the Economist stuffed into my mailbox. Each had one of these clever new two-page HSBC ads which merge street scenes in NYC and HK. I noticed on one of them that the sign for the Underground included the small seal form of the character for "wood".

Almost instantly I had formed a hypothesis that, since wood is one of the "Five Phases" of Chinese tradition, there were also lines designated "fire", "water", "earth", and "metal". Instead, the "wood" character appears to be the corporate logo for the MTR Corporation, which runs some of the transit lines. (Its Chinese name means simply "Subway Company".) The lines are colour-coded and named for stations, like ours. (Unlike ours, the eponymous stations are not endpoints.)

So what's the connexion? I would've rather expected "earth" (either 土 or 地).