Norwegian Blue

"George W. Bush has a disconcerting habit of saying things that don't mean anything ('expectations rise above that which is expected,' 'more and more of our imports come from overseas').... Even cliches betray him: 'We ought to make the pie higher.'"

So writes author and MIT psychology professor Steven Pinker in Tuesday's New York Times.

Consider China's imports, I tell my students. What percent would you guess come from outside China?

"Ten percent," ventures one, after some reflection. "Forty percent," guesses another.

Really, people call me all sorts of things, irascible and so on. My honest opinion is that I have the patience of a saint.

Granted, I've just distributed the article, we're reading it for the first time. But I've defined "imports" -- they're clear on what it means.

Incidentally, doesn't the current U.S. election illustrate what I was saying earlier about people seeking to be stroked? It seems practically everyone realizes that Gore is 100 times smarter, more knowledgeable, harder working, etc., than W. (not to mention that most are closer to him on the issues). Yet half don't support him because, one keeps hearing, they feel he is "patronizing." Does this not demonstrate an open willingness to trade on the concrete success of the nation for emotional comfort?

I've consistently seen the same thing in corporate America. During a brief consulting stint at Ambac Corporation in New York, I was close to completing, on schedule, a piece of software they'd wanted for a long time. I gave a demo of my work to date in a meeting with about eight of the financial people who needed the application. It looked great and worked beautifully (much more so since I'd resisted my boss's misguided notions of user interface design); even my boss commented afterwards on how unusual it was in their experience not to see crashes during a software demo.

A little more work remained to be done before completion and delivery to the users. However, an offensive, loud-mouthed, but favored administrative assistant was bent on revenge against me for not deferring to her. Her opportunity came when my computer monitor developed a defect. She managed to prevent its replacement for over a week. I mentioned the absurdity to an executive I met in the hall (as I recall it was the company controller): a computer part that was readily available everywhere, for a price amounting to what they were paying for two or three hours of my time, was not being replaced, while the defective part had been hindering my work for a week. He assured me with evident sincerity that he'd take care of it the next day.

But I'd breached proper channels -- and the absurdity was an embarrassment. What happened instead, the next day, was that they terminated my contract. As a result they were back at square one with regard to my project -- I'm sure they wouldn't have been able to make sense of my partial code. The work didn't go to waste, however. I wrote up the "hyper-productivity" technique, largely developed on this project, at http://urielw.com/pb/, using the project code for illustration. Note that certain names in the screenshots have been changed to discreetly identify the guilty.

Concrete interests, profit, the demands of the financial folks who needed the application to do their jobs efficiently, three months of consulting fees -- these things were of no importance whatever compared to emotional comfort. (They also sought to violate their two-week severance pay obligation, until I dropped them a line "recommend[ing] that you avoid inflicting still more damage upon Ambac's interests, and reconsider carefully your position with regard to honoring the contract you signed for my services." They'd cheated other consultants, I'd learned, but after that message I was paid promptly. "Please Uriel," the agency called to ask, "no more emails.")

Or take J.P. Morgan on Wall St., where I lasted 14 months. The bank's Chief Information Officer once told about 500 assembled employees that his number one priority was to "expand the firm's application portfolio" -- a CIO's fancy jargon for getting new computer programs written, presumably to do new, useful things.

Some time later this gentleman and I arranged to go for a squash game at my club. I mentioned on our way there that after his speech I'd asked my boss to assign me a new software application -- I'd have been happy to write it myself. (The standard operating procedure was to have "application architecture teams" -- maybe 6 to 10 or even 20 people -- work together for a lengthy period in developing applications that usually flopped in the end.) My boss had replied that he simply had no requirements for a new application. What, I wanted to know, did the CIO think of that?

Some distraction occurred and he didn't comment then, but after our game I raised the question again. (My quixotic yearning to understand the world was already in bloom before I arrived in China.) "Yes, that did ring a bell," he conceded. But nothing more was ever said, and nothing happened.

Since KFC is as ubiquitous in Beijing as McDonald's, I tell people here that I consulted for a few months at the head office, in Kentucky. But though they understand the "fried" and "chicken" parts, no one seems to know who or what "Kentucky" represents.

Mr. Praline : I wish to make a complaint!

Pet Shop Owner : (hurriedly) Sorry, we're closin' for lunch...!

Mr. Praline : Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot, what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

Owner : Oh yes, the, ah, the Norwegian Blue... What's, ah... W-what's wrong with it?

Mr. Praline : I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it.

Owner : No, no, 'e's ah... he's resting.

Mr. Praline : Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Owner : No no, h-he's not dead, he's, he's restin'!

Mr. Praline : Restin'?

Owner : Y-yeah, restin.' Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, isn't it, eh? Beautiful plumage!

Mr. Praline : The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead!

Owner : Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!

Mr. Praline : All right then, if he's resting, I'll wake him up!

(shouting at the cage)

'Ello, Polly! Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you wake up, Mr. Polly Parrot...

(owner hits the cage)

Owner : There, he moved!

Mr. Praline : No, he didn't, that was you pushing the cage!

Owner : I never!!

Mr. Praline : Yes, you did!

Owner : I never, never....

(He pulls the parrot out of the cage and screams into its ear.)

Mr. Praline : 'ELLO POLLAAAAAAAY! POLL-EE! POLLY PARROT! WAKE UP!

(He bangs its head against the store counter, horribly hard.)

TESTIIIING! TESTIIIING! THIS IS YOUR NINE-O' CLOCK ALARM CALL!

(He does it again, harder.)

POLL-EEEEEEE!

(He tosses it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor. Longish pause.)

Now that's what I call a dead parrot.

Owner : No, no.... No, he's stunned.

Mr. Praline : STUNNED?

Owner : Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.

Mr. Praline : Look my lad, I've had just about enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I bought it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out after a long squawk.

Owner : Well, he's... he's, ah... probably pining for the fjords.

(Praline looks angrily back and forth, stuttering.)

Mr. Praline : PININ' for the FJORDS? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?

Owner : The Norwegian Blue prefers kippin' on its back! Remarkable bird, isn't it, guv, eh? Lovely plumage!

Mr. Praline : (coldly) Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILED there....

[Excerpted from http://www.pythonet.org/pet-shop.html]

The students themselves are a little bit stunned by this transition from Dr. Koop's ethical lapses. But it is imperative that they know what awaits them. In March they go to England for six months.

I explain, as it seems I must, that Western communication is often blunt, direct, forthright -- and that what we have here is two men openly contradicting each other. About what?

The answers are not forthcoming. I do my customary tooth-pulling exercise. One man says the parrot is dead. The other ....? Which man is which? Why is the owner drawing attention to the bird's plumage?

I spent fully five minutes explaining the sentence about the long squawk.

Why does the customer look angrily back and forth upon the line about the fjords? (My interpretation: he's looking for anyone else to discuss the matter with, since the man facing him is crazy.)

At one point I had to postpone discussion and return to Koop for the wrap-up. I couldn't stop cracking up.

Dinner. Across the street, the same nice, friendly restaurant I've now eaten at two or three dozen times. Green vegetables; rice; fish. The Chinese words, taught me by the familiar waitress, roll off my tongue. I settle in and peruse the International Herald Tribune I've brought with me, merely a couple days out of date. The vegetables arrive and I make short work of them, wielding my chopsticks with astonishing dexterity. The rice follows. Good, the steamed fish must be on its way. I had the first half for lunch, it was delicious. This is a new arrangement, elaborated the day before when I had some students with me to translate: since the fish are too big for me alone, I have half and half, in separate meals. (I know better by now than to attempt to convey something this abstract without translators.)

Time passes; the rice is cooling. Doesn't seem too brilliant, the idea was to have it with the fish.

A half hour has passed. The rice is cold. What's taking so long? I make a "what's going on?" gesture and point to my watch. "Yu?" I say. "Yu" means fish. Inscrutable gazes (forgive the cliche) are returned.

I am sitting in the restaurant's small main room. It has four tables about a yard apart. (There are also a few small rooms for private parties.) This happens to be the unique occasion on which a fellow patron, in the main room, is sick. She looks sick, is leaning on someone, for five or 10 minutes. Then a loud, gushing vomit; then a couple more. A flood. That business finished, her friends decide the moment is ripe to take her outside the restaurant for a spell. A cleanup gradually ensues. I am wondering if any molecule will end up on my fish.

Some more time passes. I motion to the staff that I'd like to bum a cigarette from them.

Halfway through the cigarette, no sign of the fish. I will leave when it is finished.

Another couple of minutes. I stub out the cigarette and get up to sign the chit. I write "?!" and make a picture of a fish. "Yu!" I point to the fish tank, I point to my stomach. Yes, they know what a "yu" is, but there is no sign whatsoever that they know what I'm trying to get at.

Resigned, hungry, hopeless, I leave, grab a cab, take the one-minute ride to the shopping area and order a fish with rice at a restaurant there. Satisfaction finally arrives 15 minutes later (though with far too much oil, since these people have never been briefed on my strange customs).

Back at the school I collar a bewildered student. I am goddam gonna get to the bottom of this one.

I was waiting an hour for my fish, I tell her. What were these people thinking? Back at the restaurant, with her in tow: "Listen to me. Translate very carefully," I instruct. I know how these things snowball.

Several minutes of confusion as 10 people are speaking Chinese at once.

"Would you like your fish now," I am asked.

I already had my fish, I exclaim. I had to go elsewhere because they wouldn't serve me here!

More fevered Chinese in every direction.

The girl asks: "Are you angry?"

Good grief. I am trying to understand something, I say. I scrawl on the newspaper I am still clutching: "Did they believe that I came here to: A) read the paper, or B) eat dinner?"

"Translate that," I tell the girl.

Further exchanges. I am certainly not getting all of this.

She speaks to me: "You have to tell them before that you want fish."

Before? Before??

"What time do you want the other half of the fish tomorrow?"

I try to make the student appreciate that I have never ordered anything in advance here. I always walk in, place my order, and get served; most recently at lunchtime earlier the same day when I had the first half of the fish.

This seems to sink in for the student. She tells them something and looks back to me expectantly.

Before?? "I do not know now what time I will be here tomorrow. Translate that."

An exchange. Then she turns back to me:

"What time would you like the fish tomorrow?"

I look angrily back and forth. What kind of alien nation am I living in?

At length, it is confirmed that somehow, impossibly, there was indeed a misunderstanding when I was awaiting dinner. It seems their unquestioned assumption was that I had come, on this unique occasion, not for a meal, but to sit by a retching woman and be absorbed by my newspaper, as well as to occasionally gesticulate incomprehensibly and say "fish, fish" in Chinese for no clear reason.

"Communication problem," I scrawl on the paper. But the student does not know "communication." How apt.

I scratch "Communication" and replace it with "Language."

Everyone agrees. Smiles are exchanged. I shake the owner's hand, say I'll be back for the half-fish tomorrow.

But I interrupt our departure ceremony to emphasize an important point: "Make sure they understand I never plan to come in to read the paper. Only to eat a meal. I can read the paper at the hotel if I want."

Smiling, they assure me: "OK, OK, OK, sorry!" ("Sorry," "hello" and "bye bye" are universally known here.)

"Who's crazy," I demand of the girl on our way back, "me or them?"

"I think they are crazy," she says, laughing.

But is she laughing at the absurd misunderstanding? Or ....

I've occasionally empathized during this election season with Al Gore. But I can also feel the Clintons' pain. A "vast conspiracy" often suggests itself as the most plausible explanation for what I'm going through.