Every time I see cute cats on folks' avatars, had one myself until recently, I am always taken back to the day I was visiting my mother whilst she was banged up in the local nursing home. The staff there are mostly Filipino and such a delightful bunch of people, I got on really well with them and a few are still friends to this day. Now, having travelled quite extensively round the globe, I do understand that different cultures embrace different ideas of acceptable behaviour, both socially and personally. Armed with this knowledge I’m not often surprised by the habits of foreigners. I was nonetheless still taken aback by Jun when I popped in one day to see my mother. Jun is Filipino and he is called Jun because his real name is Junior, at least I think it’s his real name! Anyway, Jun told me that he was not feeling well. When I asked what the problem was he told me that it was something to do with his nose, there was pain inside his nose. now, his English is O.K. if you need to be taken to the toilet or want a cup of tea and if you wish to partake of your hot tea whilst enjoying the pleasures of cool white porcelain beneath your posterior then Jun is the man for the job. He has a way with tea and toilet tissue that is unparalleled in the western hemisphere. However, if you fancy an in depth discussion on Darwin’s theory of evolution or Fermat's last theorem then you really have to find someone else. With this in mind I decided that perhaps he may have been struggling to remember the word ‘sinus’ so I suggested that perhaps that was what his problem was. No, it wasn’t sinusitis. He had a cat up his nose.
“You have a cat up your nose?”
“Yes, a cat.”
“A cat?”
“Yes, a cat.”
“How did a cat get up your nose?”
“I did it, there was much blood”
"Bloomin' heck, I bet there was."
Now Jun is a big lad with big features, including his nose, but even I could see that large as his nostrils were, there was no way that even the smallest kitten could be accommodated up there. It didn’t matter how many times we did the “Cat?” “ Yes cat” routine I was no nearer solving this conundrum. This was where the cultural differences were kicking in. Orientals have quite a different attitude to animals than us Occidentals. The British cannot understand why anyone would ever be cruel to animals; that’s what they have children for! Our pets are sometimes treated better than our offspring, and quite right too. We all know that the Chinese and Koreans eat their dogs but I never knew that the Filipinos did such dastardly deeds to their feline friends. I had to get to the bottom of this one.
“Jun, are you really telling me that you’ve shoved a bleeding pussy cat up your nose?
Oh dear,I instantly regretted this line of interrogation when he asked,
‘What is pussy?”
I immediately, and with great difficulty, expunged all words from my mind which could be construed as anything other than inoffensive. How did I get myself into this one? More to the point, how was I going to get myself out of it?
“You know what a pussy cat is? Small, furry, rubs against your legs, likes to be scratched?”
“No.”
Mmmm....here we go again, be a little less vague, be more precise,
“They have four legs, a tail and they meow?”
“Ah, a cat?”
“Yes, a pussy cat.” Phew!
“No, no, no. The hair in my nose was itching me so I stuck some scissors up there to trim and I cat myself. It now is very sore, this cat!”
What a relief to hear that there isn’t some little kitten staggering around covered in blood and snot and short of one life. It took quite some time to explain that ‘cut’ and ‘cat’ are two very different things. I didn’t bother to explain that ‘pussy’ is something else entirely.
Ballerina x
“You have a cat up your nose?”
“Yes, a cat.”
“A cat?”
“Yes, a cat.”
“How did a cat get up your nose?”
“I did it, there was much blood”
"Bloomin' heck, I bet there was."
Now Jun is a big lad with big features, including his nose, but even I could see that large as his nostrils were, there was no way that even the smallest kitten could be accommodated up there. It didn’t matter how many times we did the “Cat?” “ Yes cat” routine I was no nearer solving this conundrum. This was where the cultural differences were kicking in. Orientals have quite a different attitude to animals than us Occidentals. The British cannot understand why anyone would ever be cruel to animals; that’s what they have children for! Our pets are sometimes treated better than our offspring, and quite right too. We all know that the Chinese and Koreans eat their dogs but I never knew that the Filipinos did such dastardly deeds to their feline friends. I had to get to the bottom of this one.
“Jun, are you really telling me that you’ve shoved a bleeding pussy cat up your nose?
Oh dear,I instantly regretted this line of interrogation when he asked,
‘What is pussy?”
I immediately, and with great difficulty, expunged all words from my mind which could be construed as anything other than inoffensive. How did I get myself into this one? More to the point, how was I going to get myself out of it?
“You know what a pussy cat is? Small, furry, rubs against your legs, likes to be scratched?”
“No.”
Mmmm....here we go again, be a little less vague, be more precise,
“They have four legs, a tail and they meow?”
“Ah, a cat?”
“Yes, a pussy cat.” Phew!
“No, no, no. The hair in my nose was itching me so I stuck some scissors up there to trim and I cat myself. It now is very sore, this cat!”
What a relief to hear that there isn’t some little kitten staggering around covered in blood and snot and short of one life. It took quite some time to explain that ‘cut’ and ‘cat’ are two very different things. I didn’t bother to explain that ‘pussy’ is something else entirely.
Ballerina x
Thanks Ballerina, just what I needed, another belly laugh. 
