DO I WANT A WHAT? (26.9.2008)
I’ve recently noticed a growing trend for businesses around Darwin and it seems to be the root cause of some mighty confusion. It appears that the Vietnamese, as a race in general, have discovered that the tropical climate around here is not so different to the homeland, but the conditions are obviously far superior.
For years there have been mad Vietnamese crabbers, living in spindly little shacks erected on remote creek banks, where they share the stifling heat and humidity with countless, ravenous bugs of every kind – not mention crocs, sharks and mudcrabs.
Five years ago, I could go to Parap markets and get five live mudcrabs off the Vietnamese chick with atrocious spelling, for twenty bucks! They weren’t the biggest dib-n-dabs off all time and they weren’t always full, but they were only four bucks each! Now, I was never one to question the origins of her stock – they were green and they were obviously local and they had little beady-eyes on orbital stalks that attested to their freshness.
I grant you I wondered more than once, how she could sell them for about five bucks a kilo, when the shops had them for fourteen bucks each. However, I was usually too busy feeding the beautiful crab-meat into my mouth, to be bothered pointing fingers at anybody! Maybe her husband was one of those skinny little mangrove dwellers, with the tanned hide and too-big shorts, and was simply a very handy crab man, with a special ability to catch more than the rest, with his limited number of licensed pots?
Anyway, spoiled by such an abundance of culinary delights, I grew sick of them and had a break from attending the markets. (Note: these markets are promoted far and wide, as something not to be missed – but outside of the food, all the market sells is handmade soap and hippie trinkets, with an occasional charlatan psychic promising to read your future).
During my absence from said markets, I recall seeing on the front page of the NT News, a semi trailer with a full load of crab-pots – they took up the entire trailer, stacked to about four metres high. Apparently some commercial crabber, from a remote camp had miscounted his registered pots and had in fact mistakenly dropped an extra two hundred traps on top of his legally allocated number. These were being seized and disposed of by Fisheries.
Strangely, my thoughts immediately turned to my sweaty little marketeer and her foam boxes full of crabs……..I wonder?………..
So I had a visit from a few mates from Sydney back in August this year. Pauly, who’d dined upon our fine market-bought crustaceans on previous visits, dragged the Boneman up to the Parap shopping precinct for some supplies. Boney is no great lover (of seafood either) – so Pauly sought out Miss Flesh-Mud-Clab and ordered two of her finest.
“Eighty-fi dollar”
“WHAT?”
“Eighty-fi dollar for mudclab”
“Shit. Thanks”
He brought them home, we cooked them up and they were damn beautiful – but they were now forty-three bucks each!
I’m not one to speculate, but perhaps she needs the extra cash to pay a fine of some kind, I really don’t know – all I do know, is that Pauly got skinned.
Which brings me to my current point – there now seems to be some fairly successful Vietnamese folk around town, who are taking over some of the bigger businesses. And I think, following long held traditions, they employ family and friends to work in such establishments – which I respect and admire – if they can get the job done…
One example is my local pub – it’s been around for nearly a century I believe and, this is pure guesswork on my behalf, but I reckon it has recently been purchased by an Asian businessman. Where there used to be a bunch of Aussie-accented and sometimes shonky Australian barstaff – there now stands a team of Asian personnel. Now I couldn’t care less who serves me beer, so I have no complaint there – what I do have complaint about is someone serving concoctions I didn’t order, because they simply do not speak Australian. People can speak English without ever having a grasp on speaking or understanding Australian – so I’ve been told by several European folk.
The first time I encountered the new staff, I was quite shocked, it was like approaching the counter of the Saigon Hilton. I was with my oldies and Dad had first shout:
“Two schooners of new and a chardonnay thankyou”
The bloke returns with two beers, half a glass of lemonade and a blank look.
“What’s that? I said two beers and a chardonnay – a glass of white wine”
“…OOrrhh – fank you sir”
I think he got chardonnay mixed up with shandy.
Then last week, I ordered:
“A schooner of New thanks mate”
And he walked over to the tap with three glasses in his hand, fills one then starts on the others.
I said “How much is that mate?”
“Just the one?”
I look around – I was clearly on my own – “Yeah, just the one schooner of New”
“Orrhh – four fifty – I thought…..oorrhhh…”
I can take the chardonnay-shandy thing, but I really don’t know why he thought I wanted THREE schooners of New?
Macca’s in Darwin too, I speculate has changed hands in a similar vein – all the workers are now Vietnamese or Chinese or some such thing. And simply for the fact that their English is so bad, I would guess that a Caucasian English speaking businessman would resist hiring these guys as staff. They cannot communicate or make themselves be understood in English.
Today, I ordered “A Quarter-pounder meal thanks mate”
“You war are-car-door?”
“What?”
“You war are-car-door?”
“Sorry mate – what did you say?”
“You have are-car-door?” as he points to some sign above with his head.
“Nah thanks mate, I’ll be fine”
Now – I don’t know what it is that I just opted out of, but I’m sure I can live without it.
I’m looking round the line of signs advertising their wares – for some kind of vehicular shape or reference – wondering WTF this bloke was offering me – something about a car-door.
Then I saw it – this week’s special, is the option of having some freaking
AVOCADO on your quarter-pounder, if you so desire!
I don’t know why anyone would want avocado on anything, but I’d like to know I had the option – especially if they were to put the extra on by default. If I had have got back to the office and found the thing covered in avocado snot, I’d have hit the roof and tossed the thing in the garbo.
It troubles me that this trend seems to be spreading and I understand that a lot of these guys must be having trouble finding other work but the answer is not to hoard them all together. The answer is to learn how to communicate and then get better jobs. It must be very challenging every day, not being able to communicate with customers – when this is the sole purpose of your job! Either that, or mix in some people who DO speak Australian, so you can learn off them.
This is not an anti-Asian bitch, it’s a bitch about bosses who hire people who are manifestly unsuited to the job they are expected to perform. Hospitality requires an ability to communicate in the language of the country in which you practice!
Anyway, enough of that for now……….I think I might have Chinese for tea tonight……..