Stock filling a Chinese chippy Lok style.....

The majority of my Saturdays while growing up were dominated by stocking up our Chinese Chippy. We would go to Chinatown after my Dad would place an order over the phone to the Chinese supermarket and arrange my Mum and myself or my brother to drive out there and pick it up. It was boring as heck but sometimes our Mum would treat us to a meal whilst out in Chinatown.

One day my Mum and brother were too busy, so my Dad and I took the trip into Chinatown, I was about 12 at the time.  My Dad was and still is a strict, hard working no BS type of a guy that just wants to get the job done as soon as possible. Back in those days my Dad didn't really converse with me and to be honest back then I didn't really know what to say to my Dad(I do now, as we talk more than we ever did). Usually our journeys to and from Chinatown would consist of silence. Anyway like I said my Dad likes to get things done as soon as possible he always rushes things but I guess it was to save time.

We got to the supermarket and bought our stock, it was quite standard to have some guy who worked at the supermarket help carry the stock to the car. The particular guy who helped us was quite a tall fella and from my recollection never really smiled.   So after the purchase the three of us went back to the car. The following is based on true events and the man carrying the stock to the car will be simply named "Stock man" to protect his identity(and because I didn't know his name anyway).

Stock man: "Where's ya Car"
My Dad(in a hurried fashion voice): "Over there, over there, thank you
We get to the car.
My Dad talking to me: "You can get in the car"
Me: "OK"
My Dad opens the car boot Stock man is loading up the car. For some reason that day I turned around and watched from the front seat to watch Stock man and Dad load up the car. Stock man was about to put the the last box into the car.
My Dad with one hand on the open boot door says in a hurried fashion: "Thank you, Thank you"
Suddenly I hear a THUD reminiscent of a movie sound effect whereby someone had just been hit on the back of the head, because in fact someone had just been hit in the back of the head! My dad accidentally (or hurriedly) slammed the boot door on the back of Stock mans head while he was placing the last box in the car.
Stock man "Arggggh!"
My Dad(Still in hurried fashion but slightly slowed down) "Sorry, sorry, are you OK?"
Stock man rubbing back of head and wincing in pain said nothing.
My Dad(concerned but a bit more hurried as he didn't get an answer the first time round) "Are you OK?, are you OK?"
Stock man(angrily) "YES I'm OK!"
My Dad (with smile and a faint laugh) "OK bye!"

I wasn't sure if the faint laugh my Dad let off was because he was happy Stock man was angrily OK or he just felt the whole thing was funny.

Stock man walked off rubbing the back of his head and swearing in the way Yosamite Sam would swear after being foiled by Bugs Bunny. My Dad let off a faint chuckle again.

On the way back home my Dad and I sat in our usual silence until half way through the journey, I started sniggering. My Dad looked at me and said "What you are laughing at?"

I looked at my Dad and burst out laughing and then my Dad started to laugh and suddenly we both BURST OUT LAUGHING together all the way home. If Carlsberg did Chinese chippy stock buying trips......

My name is...

My older brother's name is Lun, a common popular name among Cantonese speaking people and not too hard to pronounce or remember in English. In fact it's a very cool name if I may say so myself. However we had one customer who used to come into the chippy that always used to call my brother Tony. My brother probably tried to tell him numerous times he wasn't called Tony but indeed called Lun but because the customer insisted on calling him Tony, there wasn't much point to correct him. The customer, a friendly big man with an overwhelming laugh was a regular and didn't have to call me by name because he didn't know what my name was.

One day the customer rang up to order his usual of Steak Pudding,chips and...curry(yes curry sauce)whereby I answered the phone.

Me "Hello"
Customer: "Hiya can I place an order?"
Me:"Of course"
Customer: "Hiya can I have a pudding..wait is that Tony?..hiya Tony!"
Me(not seeing the point of explaining who I was because he wouldn't have known anyway): "Yup hi yeah its Tony, sorry what was your order?"
Customer: "Pudding,chips and curry.wait a minute you ain't Tony, isn't this Kit?"
Me(now embarrased): "Erm yeah it's Kit sorry."
Customer(now sounding a bit bemused:"I will be there in ten minutes,thanks bye"

To this day I have no idea how he got my name right and consequently consistently got my brothers name wrong.

Please check back for more exciting tales from a chinese chippy.