Chaborkia.com

I am very bored with the food choice in India. No junk food, no kopitiam for morning tea, no mamak stall for tea, etc. All I have here is white bread, made without eggs (vegan country, so it’s like char kuey teow without lard, where got sedap one?!); and cornflakes that I have to eat sparingly with my limited supply of milk powder (cows here eat trash, so we dare not order fresh milk from the friendly cow man). And guess what? I just found out our regular bakery shop is infested with monsoon season flies. Fly, in the plural, you know? The insect that sits on top of poo?

FML FML.

No pork noodles for breakfast, no teh oh ais to quench my thirst, cannot ‘zham’ RM5 ringgit of siew yoke when I feel like having salty delights. T_T No leafy green veges here. T_T No chinese mixed rice here. Only got vegetarian hakka noodles (is a JOKE, hakka noodle without pork?!!!!! *faints*) in restaurants that are far and few in between at the city.

One fine day, I was so bored, so dejected that I feel suicidal, I tried to order McDonalds even though I know it’ll be another sad joke. Even India’s largest telco, Airtel’s customer service can blabber at me in Hindi when I ‘press 1 for English’, what you expect lah?! Even in KL I also hate it when I choose English and got blabbered at in Malay. Dude, that makes the option thing totally redundant.

Bad thoughts aside, I was pleased that the call-center is articulate in English, so I placed my order. However, Indians learn English by using Hindi phonetics, hence their heavy accent.

Just imagine: Whatever stereotype you had in mind of Indian-English and the head-shaking thing, it’s totally 100% true. XD The heavy accent, coupled by head-shaking, I believe it’s deeply embedded in everyone’s mind. So picture that, and continue reading!

CLICK ‘READ MORE’ TO PROCEED TO THE LOLZ!

So I was telling the call-center guy my name. My name is Tan. You know 陈, we pronounce Tan as something like 炭 (tan4) right? I was repeatedly telling the guy my good name is Tan. Yeah they say ‘good name’ here, dunno why lah.

“My name is Tan. *silence on the other side* … … Tan, Tan!” I hissed somewhat impatiently. I was hungry.

And FINALLY, he said “woookay, *imagines him shaking his head*“, much to my relief.

But when I received my food and the bill, I nearly fainted.

They changed my name to Pan. Pantang. Just because I repeated the word twice. I think Tan (炭) is totally alien to their tongue. So the changed the consonant to ‘P’.

FML.

My dad later told me, if you wanna tell people your surname, you need to pronounce ‘Tan’ as ‘Ten’.

顶，我是阿陈，不是阿十啦！

On a more serious note, they really need to do something about their system. Terms are not consistent, roads are poorly named, and there are 101 different variations for each of their locations. It’s just like the name Fatima, it can vary from Fatimah, Fartima, Fehtima, Fathima, etc. You get the gist?!

It was a real pain just getting my address correct.

Wanna know how’s their address like?

Let’s say you’re living at an apartment opposite KLCC,

Block ABC, Floor 12, Apartment Name,
Opposite KLCC,
Beside Jalan Ampang,
50 meter from the intersection between Building A and Building,
- no postcode -, Selangor.

It may sound reasonable because who doesn’t know KLCC? But in India, the power distance is so large, fancy buildings are totally out of reach of the typical postman / auto rickshaw driver. So how lah this type of system work?

Yet, our bills always arrive in time. Get lost lah wei.

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2. Ya Hui the Mythbuster - Of Lectures and Lecturers.
3. Chaborkia Goes to Three Gate at Old City, Ahmedabad, India.
4. Take me to the Post Office Pl0x.
5. Authentic India Mehendi Art and some LOL Foreigner Moments~