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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2019
Most travelers eventually realize that they are the foreigners, and for me language was an early clue. From the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, I spent eleven years teaching in Singapore and Hong Kong, where—despite the broad reach of American popular culture—some form of British English ruled. In Singapore, it is true, many people spoke “Singlish,” full of local words and expressions such as kopi tiam (coffee shop), kampong (village), “can or not” (yes or no), lah (untranslatable word of emphasis) or kiasu (the fear of missing out). But terms like these were rarely the source of my language problems.
1 Not “ex-patriot,” which is how some American friends kept referring to me.Google Scholar
2 This term continues to confuse Americans, and on occasion I still translate for colleagues. When we were negotiating an exchange agreement with a Commonwealth university, for example, several colleagues asked why they wanted staff exchanges. “They don't,” I explained. “They are talking about the faculty.”Google Scholar
3 HKU has continued the retitling process, but perhaps people's views haven't quite caught up with its goals. When I became a full professor at Hawai'i, a former HKU colleague greeted the news with the comment that this didn't mean I was a real professor. “Oh, it most definitely does!,” I replied.Google Scholar
4 I really had no excuse for this: for years a Kiwi colleague had told us how most Canadians believed he had gone there to study “lore.”Google Scholar
5 Literally, “white ghost,” a semi-derogatory term for Caucasians or foreigners, but often used by them as well.Google Scholar
6 A drongo is also a bird.Google Scholar