by Beaufortninja

The other day my wife and I were going somewhere and decided to take the metro. When the train pulled up it was already crowded with people but the waiting crowd of commuters rushed forward like usual and smashed their way in. So there we all were, crammed into this metal tube. Nothing out of the ordinary about that.

However, one middle-aged woman decided to take issue with me. She was standing in front of me, turned up her nose and muttered, just loud enough for me to hear, “Mmm. Ho chow!”

“Ho chow” is a Cantonese word that means “smelly” or that something stinks. After she said that, she then tried to maneuver somewhere farther away from me and in a less crowded part of the train. I was taken aback by her rudeness and made some subtle attempts to smell myself to see if I was indeed smelly. It was a hot day but I had remembered to put on deodorant and I honestly couldn’t smell anything bad. No one else appeared uncomfortable and my wife usually lets me know if I’m smelling not so fresh.

Unable to find the cause of being called smelly, I deduced that the woman just didn’t like foreigners. Foreigners in China have an ongoing stereotype of being stinky and I guessed it was being directed at me. No big deal. Her uppins were going to come soon.

The train stopped at the next station and the woman had to slide past me to get to the door. She brushed against me and I said in a loud voice, “Mmm! Nay ho chow!” (You stink!). She gave me a shocked expression and the others in the train looked surprised as well. It’s unusual for foreigners to understand and speak Cantonese and there were a few laughs had at the woman’s expense and she hurried away, embarrassed at the loss of face.

So, the point of the story is this: good guys win, bad guys lose. If someone is rude to me I’ll make them lose tons of face. And as the expats here (should) know, face is massively important in China.

    不久前，妻子和我決定搭乘地鐵外出。列車到站停下的時(shí)候，里面已經(jīng)人擠人，眾多等待的通勤客仍像往常一樣，擠來擠去。我們都得要這么擠進(jìn)金屬車廂，誰也不例外。

    可是一名中年婦女對我有意見。當(dāng)時(shí)她正站在我面前，捏著鼻孔嘀咕著，音量足以讓我聽清楚，“Mmm，Ho chow！”

    “Ho chow”是廣東話，意思是“氣味不雅”，或是指什么東西發(fā)臭。她說完后，試圖遠(yuǎn)離我，挪到別處人少的地方。我對她粗魯?shù)呐e止感到驚訝，我暗中去聞了下自己是否哪里真有味道。今天天氣熱，記得我可是噴過除臭劑，我自己確實(shí)聞不到異味。別人都沒有像她那樣表現(xiàn)出不適，再說，我妻子通常也會提醒我這方面的事情。

    找不到自己身上的原因，我推斷那個女人就是不喜歡外國人。在華的外國人目下正被人認(rèn)為身上氣味大，我猜這個標(biāo)簽我是沒得選了。沒什么大不了。她的傲氣快要吃癟了。

    列車到了一站停下，那個女人往門口移動，不得不從我身邊過。她擦過的時(shí)候，我大聲說：“Mmm！聶好臭！”（你真臭！）。她給嚇住了，車上的其它人也一樣驚訝起來。一個老外懂廣東話，而且還會說，這倒不常見，幾個人朝那女人笑，她丟了臉，很快走開了。

    吶，這樁事情的精髓是：善有善報(bào)，惡有惡報(bào)。如果有人對我無禮，我就讓他

    們丟臉難堪。作為僑居的外國人，你要知道，在中國，面子很重要。