My Mother & Her "English" Surprises

My mother is a woman of surprises.

She used to strike me as being cool-headed, popular with the elderly and a good housewife. I never thought of her as being outspoken. But there have been occasions when I was surprised by her bouts of guffawing at a TV scene, or her hidden talent at imitating my father’s agitated voice and temper. That made me laugh, every time.

It is also interesting to note that her English skills are something that she needs help with. Reading the newspaper is her version of getting the daily updates on the world outside. As our household has only English newspapers, and she isn’t particularly inclined to acquiring Mandarin publications daily, she acquiesces to reading it whenever she has free time. Oftentimes, she needs help understanding certain vocabulary, like pillion rider. Suffice to say, her English skills could use some polishing.

I had a 180 switch of my opinion about that, one day.

If it wasn’t for her, going Dutch would still be an alien phrase in my ears. If it helps, it means splitting the cost of something, usually a meal, equally. I did a double take then, when she had mentioned it nonchalantly. There was a blank look on her face as I repeated my query to the meaning of the strange, new phrase. She thought I was trying to test her patience.

‘How could you not know or heard of this phrase before?’ came her exclamation in Mandarin, as she rooted around the refrigerator for hidden tomatoes.

I had shrugged ‘It must be ancient, then,’ No one my age talks in phrases and idioms anymore.

The discussion had ended abruptly at the time.

But then, Monday arrived.

Our kitchen sink was leaking water down to the cabinet storage beneath it, so my mother required my help with taping the leakages with adhesive plasters, bought from an online retailer. The material and durability of the plasters seemed dubious, but I went along with her.

My main – and only – task was to measure the length of the required tape, cut it and help with taping it along the perimeters of the sink. I did my duty, diligently.

We were down to the last side of the rectangular sink when my mother muttered something.

‘Sorry?’ I was engrossed in completing the work that I missed what she had said.

She replied some words in Mandarin. And then, I heard, ‘…Sundays are longer than Mondays,’

I went silent, processing what she just uttered. I did a mental search of my vocabulary reservoir and concluded that I had never heard of it before.

‘Well, what does it mean?’ My mother was fixed on gluing the tape and might have been ignorant to the fact that I’m obviously unfamiliar with the English phrase.

Patience is not her virtue, but I could detect it in the tone of her voice when she opened her mouth, ‘It means just as you have heard it. The adhesive side of the tape is longer than the actual tape itself.’

I looked at the last tape that she was trying to align to the creviced sink. Indeed, the white adhesive on one side was longer than its non-adhesive counterpart.

It turned out, after a simple Google search, that Sunday is longer than Monday is a phrase to mean that your petticoat or innerwear is peeping out of your outerwear.

Her English prowess might not astound me, but the sporadic English proverbs and phrases are a refreshing surprise. And I would make sure that a notepad and pencil are readily available whenever I need them next time.

On a side note, I thought innerwear was a term of my own making. Apparently, it exists and means undergarments. So much for thinking that I had coined a new term.