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Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
Wine tour operator, wine writer and lapsed physiotherapist. "Nature abhors a vacuum. I personally hate dusting."

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

OKAY - This One IS Pretty Weird

Okay - this one is really weird. 
A Japanese family booked a tour with me - for four people.
So I pick them up: young Japanese woman (late teens, studying in Auckland), her parents and her boyfriend.
She was a tad alternative - tattoos, dressed in black.  But the parents were very stereotypical older Japanese: polite, quiet, groomed and reserved.  The boyfriend was something else. He talked with an 'Asian' accent, and looked vaguely Asian.  He was very scruffy, unwashed and ... smelly.  I said, 'So where are you from?' and he replied, 'I'm a Kiwi - but I talk like this because I hang out with a lot of Asian people.'
Sooooo - I thought WTF??? A Kiwi who talks like an Asian student - just because he associates with them?

Strangely - this was the second time I had struck this.  The first time, I was in a Melbourne Youth Hostel (escaping the fallout from my first marriage meltdown).  I was at breakfast, and noticed two Asian guys talking loudly.  But then I noticed that one was blue-eyed, blond, and not remotely Asian. He was channelling some kind of cod Korean accent when he talked to English-speaking Koreans!
I tried to eat my poached eggs and baked beans on toast, but for the life of me, could not ignore this Loony Tune Wannabe Feckin' Korean - rattling on in his staccato faux Eastern accent: 'When I sing. Kar-a-oke. My Fren' Kim get je luss. So he no my fren'. No more. I try talk to him bu' it no good.'
For some reason I found this intensely annoying - and I wanted to smack him on the head with my plastic brekkie tray and pour cold tea down his shirt before I returned it to the servery.  I didn't.

But ... meanwhile, back at the wine tour ... the parents were obviously (politely) totally horrifed at their daughter's choice of a Kiwi boyfriend.  He kept acting like a pretendy Japanese dork: chain-smoked, threw in the odd Japanese word that he knew and tried to be as Japanese as he could. His girlfriend was plainly vexed by his insensitivity, level of personal hygiene and general gormlessness.

I could see the relationship was dead in the water by lunchtime.

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