Language Barrier

While talking about language barrier, a young Spanish lady narrated this to Dee: "As I was driving with my 7-yr old daughter, the police car coming behind showed blinking lights, which meant they wanted me to pull over. Actually I didn't notice and was driving ahead. The police then honked their horn, which I ignored thinking that it was for something else. I heard their voice in the loud-speaker, which I did not understand anyway, and continued to drive. Minutes later I heard their their loud-speaker blaring again; it was then my 7-yr old daughter got alerted and told me in Spanish: "Mom, they say they are going to shoot at our car tyre if we don't stop..."

Years ago, when we landed in Japan for the first time, Vanishree had to do our 'childhood gesture' (mostly in elementary schools; see picture) to request a waitress in a restaurant for some water! (Today  -Oct-21, is the day we landed in Japan several years ago). Imagine what the waitress would have thought about us! She imitated us trying to do the same sign;  looking at her twisted fingers, she talked to herself something and asked "nani? nani??" (what? what?)

I had my incident in Madrid where I'd gone on a business trip. I'd gone to a nearby shopping mall on a Sunday evening; it was December and was dead cold over there. The mall was crowded with people who were doing shopping as if tomorrow was the End of the world, and there was no signboard for toilet (This is the case in many countries except Japan). I searched here & there but in vain. Asked a couple of men who I thought could understand basic English but they gave me a look as if I came from a different planet and walked away. I kept walking in 'all directions'....... and found an old lady carrying a basket, a mob & a brush, and was in a dirty uniform. "She is it!" I told myself and silently followed her. She walked through some narrow lanes and finally reached a store-room where she kept her basket and mop, and was about to return. There was no toilet though.

Perhaps she was done for the day, and was about to return home. Knowing that she was the last chance for me to get some idea of where the toilet was, I intervened and asked her "Toilet? Toi-let-oo? Resta Rooma?" in several accents & 'dialects'. She blinked her eyes and was moving away, as others did. I was in a hurry, and I didn't want to let her go. I momentarily realized that nothing other than gesture would work! I intervened her again, and instead of 'talking' did an appropriate gesture, which she instantly understood. She then led me to the toilet which was some 200m away from the store-room.

On narrating this to a friend, he asked, laughing out loudly: "What was the gesture you did, by the way?"
"I leave it to your imagination.." said I.