Language Art

                                               Language Art


       I work at night and start at ten o'clock in the evening. It is a long way to work and I must be on time so I always leave early in order to make sure that a delay because of a traffic accident or a road closure does not make me late for work. Thus I am usually thirty minutes or so early and spend that time with a cup of coffee in a convenience store or, for a few months a couple of years ago, in the Burger King across the street from my job.

     One of the employees there was a young Thai woman on a 6 month work contract. She had no more than a dozen words of English and worked in the kitchen and did not deal with customers. If the clerk up front made an error on the cash register or got confused and didn't know what to do Sunee would see what was happening and go up front and in a few seconds with a few pokes of her finger on the register screen would have it all  fixed. The shift manager, a big woman named Shakeela, did not like for Sunee to do that after Sunee once got that shift manager out of a similar jam. It made Shakeela feel stupid.

     Alas, Shakeela was, indeed, stupid.

     When I started getting coffee in there I would often hear Shakeela in the back yelling at "you stupid gook bitch!" and telling Sunee she was an animal because she couldn't speak English. Sunee did not understand the words But she knew the tone.

     There were also Thai contract workers in Housekeeping where I worked then and one of them knew some English. I asked him if he was acquainted with the lass at the Burger King. He said he was and that she was miserable working for that loud ugly person.

     I went on-line to a Thai language teaching site and learned the meet-and-greets and a couple of other social phrases and tried them out when I went into Burger King again. Shakeela was on a break and Sunee was up front mopping the floor. I caught her eye, put my hands together and said, "Sawadee." She looked up with a big smile and returned the greeting. We went back and forth with "How are you" and "I am fine," then "How is your

family" and "What is your name" et cetera for half a dozen exchanges. I had also learned to say "That's all the Thai I know." She seemed pleased with that.

     We repeated that performance, except the part about names, whenever I went in there for a couple of months, much to the annoyance of Shakeela. Shakeela just gave her hell more and more for saying things Shakeela didn't understand. Once I put my hands together in greeting when I entered and saw Sunee in the back. She hastily put her own fingertips together and almost dropped the pans she was holding. I resolved not to surprise her

like that again.

     Then one night I heard Shakeela screaming even before I got to the door. When I went in there were no other customers there and Shakeela quit yelling when she saw me enter. Sunee also saw me and came quickly out to the front and this time she greeted me first-"Sawadee." I returned the greeting and we went through the whole series. When we came to the end of my Thai, Sunee put her hand in front of her where Shakeela could not see and made "keep going" motions. I didn't know any more Thai so I shifted to Vietnamese and she answered me back in Thai. We made half a dozen more exchanges like that, neither understanding the other, and then she motioned me to end it. I put my hands together and bowed slightly and she did the same. Then I got my coffee and went over to a table while Sunee returned to the kitchen  I could hear Shakeela  berating her again for talking "that ugly noise" and demanding to know why she was talking to me and what was she saying about Shakeela. I could see them back there and the blower was off for a moment so I heard Sunee say in English, with her chin tilted up and a smug smile, "He speak my language." Then she turned around and went back to work washing stuff.

      After another minute  Shakeela bustled out officiously and confronted me where I sat with my cup of coffee. "What's that (stuff) she say? You really talk that (stuff), too? "I answered her, "Yes, of course I speak Thai- I went to high school."  The woman got suddenly very tense and her hands shook a little. She started to say something but her voice just squeaked. She spun around and stomped back into the kitchen where she commenced to berating Sunee again.

     After that whenever I went in there and Shakeela was being obnoxious Sunee looked so very serene as if the shift manager were just a noisy radio.  She would see me and put her hands together and bow slightly and I would do the same. If she was in the front we would repeat the meet-and-greets.  Then one night she wasn't there and Shakeela met me inside the door and

said triumphantly that "that (adjective) gook gone back to Korea!"

     I hope Sunee has better memories of her time in America than

that shift manager. And I hope she was able to send enough

money home to make it all worthwhile.

April 2007