I know that I’ve mentioned many times before that I am a hopeless case when it comes to geography and history, but today has proved this for me. It has also proved that I am not alone in my ignorance. In fact I think it might be contagious, and just by being near other people, I am sucking the geographical knowledge right out of them.
I had a conversation with some people at work today about the location of
Accounts Lady: Do you know where
Me: Ummm…..in
Her: It’s the capital of
Me:
Her: What is it the capital of then?
Me: It’s not a capital, it’s a country!
Marketing Guy: Is it in
Her: Oh wait, I know - it’s the capital of
Me: Yes, does anyone have an atlas?
Her: It must be a country, right?
Me: Actually on second thought - I thought
Her: I’ll ask the boss.
She rings the boss.
Her: Where is
Boss Man: I can’t believe you don’t know basic geography! Hong Kong is the capital of
Her: OK, Boss Man says it’s the capital of
Me: Cool, I learnt something today!
Marketing Guy: Yeah, me too.
So I thought i had learnt something, until wikipedia told me that I hadn't.
Tomorrow I’m going to go and buy an atlas.
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1 comments:
Oh, my. You ARE going to have fun educating your boss!
A long time ago I met a Belgian guy in Shanghai. It was night, and he was sitting in a deck chair wearing dark glasses in a seedy alley outside a seedy restaurant, which I was about to go into with a couple of Japanese guys I'd met on the boat over from Japan. (I'm giving too much information, aren't I? I'll get to the point.)
After we went in and ordered our meal, I went out again because I felt like I had hallucinated the guy in the deck chair. It was too weird. He was real, though, and I chatted with him. It was a very disorienting conversation. He asked me where I was from, and I explained that I was living in Japan. He said,
"Really? I've always wanted to go to Hong Kong."
"Er, I'm living in Japan," I said.
"Yeah. I've heard Hong Kong is great. People buy you drinks all the time."
"Um, how long have you been in China?"
"Seven years. And nobody has ever bought me a drink. It's a terrible place."
Further questioning revealed that he thought Japan was a city in Hong Kong.
It's one thing to not know where Hong Kong is when you're on the other side of the world and haven't been anywhere near the place, but that guy had NO EXCUSE.
Come to think of it, given the deck chair and dark glasses, I wonder where he thought he was?
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