Chicken Eggs 8/1/2010
on Mary In Cambodia (Cambodia), 08/Jan/2010 11:28, 34 days ago
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Chicken Eggs. 8/1/2010Have you ever asked for chicken eggs and been handed bananas? I have. Today I felt like having an egg sandwich for lunch and so I went to the market to buy some eggs. What could be easier? I’ve been here a month now and have given the market girls a few laughs. But I’m learning. Today I went prepared. I learned the word for egg some time ago. PONG I also learned that one must specify chicken for obvious reasons if you live here MUN. So pong mun should get you chicken eggs, right? Wrong. It gets you market girls wetting themselves laughing.Back to the drawing board. My pronunciation is not quite right. In stages .'pong mun'should sound like' pone moon'with a W after the M and a G at the end of each word. So it’s'Pone’g Mwoon’g'. I knew that this morning and practised it all the way to the market. I've decided I’m not pointing at what I want today, I’m going to ask properly and be served.I arrive at the'We sell everything'stall,,I smile, greet, and ask for 4 chicken eggs please------no laughing-----I’m handed a bunch of bananas and they’re not even smiling. I repeat my request, I’m still offered bananas. I know the word for banana is PLY CHAKE. Ah well, I do need bananas too, so I pay up and move on, very confused. At the next stall (not a banana in sight) I ask for the eggs again, and guess what--- I’m handed eggs. Great, but what did I say wrong at the first stall? As I’m trying to find out, the banana lady thinks I’m confused about the price and comes to show me with her wad of notes. I explain my confusion in my best Khmer and the explanation is—Pone’g Mwoon’g is chicken egg, Ply Chake is banana, but these particular little ones are called chicken egg bananas---Chake pone’g mwoon’g, which in the market is shortened to Pone’g Mwoon’g. Easy! I’ve had a good free lesson in Khmer. My egg sandwich was delicious. You can do without lots of things out here, but one must have a sense of humour, especially silly women who don't know their eggs from their bananas.
