On Tuesday while we were waiting at the train station in Fengyuan for
Daniel to arrive, a saleswoman walked over to my wife. Saleswomen are always bothering my wife, for she has freckles, which foreigners consider cute, but which locals think are hideous. There are numerous creams out there that claim to reduce or remove them, and armies of salespeople tramp the island to hawk them, stopping people in department stores, train stations, or even in traffic, as happened to a stunningly gorgeous foreign friend of mine in Kaohsiung who has freckles. Apparently any sort of cheek coloration is bad, for Daniel reported to me that a plastic surgeon had offered to remove the red spots from his cheeks. Since Daniel is much better looking than I am, and the red spots are inordinately cute, I was all for this policy of reducing the pulchritude gap, but for some reason Daniel just wasn't buying. Broke my heart, he did.
The salesman who accosted my wife wasn't after the freckles, but was instead offering a fountain of eternal youth, in the form of diet supplements, a common scam in every nation. She pretended to do a survey and then attempted to sell my wife some stuff that would keep her looking young. My wife, who is XX* but looks at least a decade younger, listened patiently but politely kept saying "no" to each request. Phone number? No. Address? No. Age?
My wife told her.
The woman gave a loud squawk and there was a long pause. She looked around conspiratorially, and then her voice dropped about 50 decibels as she leaned in closer to my wife.
"So," she asked. "What are you taking?"
[Taiwan]*This information has been censored in the interests of marital harmony.
6 comments:
Hmmm... you say XX, which is 20, of course, but perhaps you're already subtracting the 10 years, so I'll guess she's 30! (OK, that was pretty twisted reasoning...)
Great story!
Some guys are just lucky... ;)
Good one.
i universally hate hawkers.. do they actually think i will accept the wisdom of someone who has literally forced themselves upon me....
Actually, my wife says that I caused all her gray hairs :).
And yes, Fili, I am very lucky. Someday I'll blog on my wife, who grew up in Vietnam and went to American and Cantonese schools, and speaks about 8 languages.
Michael
I did not understand why my hubby kept telling me how lucky he was. While I was in TW, I had never dated. I had lots of guy friends; but all of them wanted to date skinny, pale-skinned, frail- and docil-looking young ladies. All I could claim to be was being skinny.
Now, after reading your blog, I begin to believe my husband's compliments and I appreaciate it more each time.
I found it interesting when hanging out with my mainland Chinese husband and his group of unmarried friends that when discussing potential girlfriends in addition to skin colour, height seemed to be extremely important. This might only be a mainland thing or could be something to do with the fact they are all athletes, but it was hilarious listening to them refer to girls as the 1.75m one or the impressed round of oooh... she's 1.79m, or no, she's not suitable, she's only 1.63m.
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