Vampire Teabags

Today I was having random thoughts in my head about vampires (no, not Edward Cullen) but the Chinese word for it and whether it had anything to do with ginger. You see, 殭屍 (goeng si) is 'vampire' in Cantonese, but the first character sounds a lot like 'ginger'. Anyway, after a bit of searching, I not only found the answer to my question, but discovered a rather new piece of slang.

Do you know what 殭屍茶包 (vampire teabag) means? Go on, take a wild guess. Yes, think nasty...even dirtier... and yes, do go there. If your mind led you somewhere close to a woman's toilet trash bin and the treasures that lay within, you are SO right!

There's even a joke in Cantonese about this, and it goes something like this:

Three vampires walk into a bar to order drinks.
Vampire A says, "I'll take one shot of fresh chicken blood!"
Vampire B says, "I'll have a pork blood milkshake, thanks."
Vampire C says, "And I'll have one hot water, please."
Bartender says, "What? You're a vampire, don't you want something bloody?"
Vampire C says, "No thanks! I found something nice in the ladies' washroom - *wink*!"

Here's the official definition, care of Cantonese Sheik. You'll never look at an 'M' product the same way...lol!

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Me vs. Tea Lady - Round 2

The latest battle between me and the office Tea Lady came about after yet another cockroach decided to rear its ugly face on my desk. This time, a rather large, yellow roach was caught creepy-crawling on my office telephone receiver. But by the time I hollered "ROACH!" at the top of my lungs, that little bastard had disappeared, making me look like a total idiot in front of all my colleagues.

For those who know me, you know that I'm a magnet for cockroaches. Somehow, they always seem to pop up around me, no matter if they're on the street, outside my door or crawling on my cubicle walls. So, it's totally not my fault that I have cockroaches on my desk.

However, the Tea Lady thinks otherwise. She had already been commenting a lot about my eating patterns, for one.

"Eating AGAIN?" she'd say every time she saw me take out a snack from the fridge. It didn't matter if it was a box of blueberries or a small cup of yogurt, I was still a pig to her.

"Make sure it doesn't spill!" she'd say if she saw me reheating a cup of milk tea in the microwave. *rolls eyes* "Yes, ma'am..."

This morning, she cornered me in the pantry and told me how she had sprayed my cubicle down with insecticide and wiped my desk off with bleach.

"Do you know how much crap fell out of your phone when we turned it upside down?" she exclaimed. "You're eating too much! So many food particles came out!!"

"What!?" I said back. "What are you talking about? I don't eat over the phone! Plus I keep everything I have in sealed bags!"

Wanting to prove her point, she grabbed onto my upper arm with a death-grip (I'm SO not kidding, her bony hand closed in on my arm like a cold, mechanical robot's) and led me to my cubicle.

"Look! All this FOOD fell out of your phone!" she said. I looked down into the waste basket and saw what appeared to be black bits of crap, sort of like coffee grinds.

"What?! That's not food, that's probably cockroach eggs!" I shouted at her. "How could you think this is food, geez, I told you, I don't eat stuff over my phone! Ugh!" At this point, she was still gripping onto my arm so I pushed her hand off me and said, "LET ME GO!"

My arm felt properly bruised and I had to rub it for the rest of the morning to get it feeling normal again. I can't believe her! Wtf!

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Where's mah fruit?!

It's amazing how quickly we get spoiled in Hong Kong. I mean, do you ever find yourself saying:

"What? I need to wait FIVE WHOLE minutes for the MTR!?"

"AW MAN!! The escalator's been turned off and I hafta *gasp* WALK UP!?"

and of course:

"Wat the hell?! I didn't get no fruit today!?"

(Yea, that last one was me today...) I remember the first time I saw the fruit ladies come around the office. I could hear the loud chatter of two middle-aged ladies from afar coming closer and closer until suddenly, a pair of semi-bruised bananas landed on my desk with a THUD.

"Eat up, lenglui. It's bananas today," said the permed ladies who worked as a team. While one of them pushed around a box of bananas on wheels, the other one tossed the fruit onto our desks.

I couldn't help feeling like a monkey in a zoo. ('HOO HOO HAA HAA! What's it going to be today, lady?' I'd say while scratching my armpits and banging my keyboard against my forehead. 'Please oh please, toss me one of them yellow things!')

Nowadays, I've learned to look forward to getting my weekly dose of fruit. The fruit ladies have been kind, and sometimes bring us exotic varieties like longan and asian pears (ooOOoo).

But you know what? I got into the office a little later than usual today and my fruit basket was totally empty! Either somebody stole my bananas, or they simply decided to skip me! Bahhh..damn you fruit ladies!!

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