Member-only story
The Sultan of Brunei’s Wife Stopped in My Shop
And changed the course of my life
“You sound like an Indonesian,” she told me, (finally!), “but you sound like you come from the gutter!”
It had taken me twenty minutes to receive this enlightenment.
I couldn’t ask her outright why she was laughing at me in a full-on, mouth-hiding giggle fit. No. Indonesians typically balk at being asked direct questions. If you want to find something out, you need to offer up your own perspective, first off, as an innocuous and tentative statement that is on the very edge of the subject you wish to know about. Then both parties work a series of guesses, disguised as tentative statements.
Making a definitive statement also goes against the grain, so much so that if, for example, you ask a 90-year-old woman whether she has children, and she doesn’t, she will say “Belum”: — not yet.
It had been a typical day in the shop I managed, in the Student Union of the Institute of Education — part of the University of London. The Inst of Ed is where students get a teaching degree, and teachers get further certifications in teaching.
The student supply shop was small, but I am a space wizard, and I stocked a huge variety of goods, at only 25% markup, not the usual 50% or 75% markup prices. If…
