Wake up call
There are many little differences between life here and the States about which I rarely think, much less blog. One of those is the way folks tell time. In these parts, the time is written using a twenty-four hour clock, or military time, as it's called back home. So four pm is written 16:00 and ten-thirty in the evening is written 22:30. Having filled out timesheets on second shift for years, I'm quite used to writing in that format. When I talk, however, I still use the (U.S.) standard, so I say I used to start work at three and end at eleven-thirty.Anyway, what brought this all to mind is a phone call received this morning. About quarter to seven--06:45--the phone started ringing, waking 3/4 of the household. (Siu Wan can sleep through anything.) I stumbled out of bed to answer it. A female voice asked for Yau Neih. I said I would see if she could come to the phone, then the girl asked me where English corner was being held at. I said it was going to be at six-thirty and started to give the location when she thanked me and hung up. As she did so I could hear her start to talk with some other voices. It then dawned on me that at least a couple of students had been hanging around waiting for English corner to start, wondering where their teacher was. All because we said six-thirty rather than 18:30. It's always the little things that get you....
posted by John @ 9:03 PM
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