LAUGHING STORK, SMOKING LOON
Pondering my bemusement over the subtitled "laughing stork" emperor, (qv, previous post, Law and Order--SDU), I Googled the phrase just to make sure I wasn't being completely naive.

I had had a comeuppance over the frequent use of the peculiar term "small beer" in subtitles to describe sort of low ranking insignificant guys, when the Wizard informed me that it's a perfectly good British term...the British have had a strong effect on Hong Kong Chinese-to-English translators and speakers. Once while waiting for a pay phone in Hong Kong, I was eavesdropping on the conversation of the person ahead of me around the corner.  I expected to see Roger Moore appear when he was done, but, surprise, surprise, he turned out to be an extremely attractive tall Chinese man, a Han-style James Bond. Definitely not a small beer.

So, among 82,500 hits for "Laughing Stork"-- mostly regarding a humorous blog and column about parenting--there were more than a few uses of this term in casual conversations coming out of Singapore and Lesotho, as well as a literary reference: something hilarious called "Frying the Flag"** by Lawrence Durrell from his "Esprit de Corps"(1957)in which he either noticed this strange usage or started it. The passage is about twisted English and really worth reading. 


Which I am doing over a pau hana glass of Smoking Loon, my very favorite very cheap cabernet.  It is inspiring me to suggest to my newly formed office qigong group that in addition to the yin Moon and Sea form, we create a little yang routine of our own: Laughing Stork, Smoking Loon. Wade in the water, light the cigar. Crazy monkeys indeed.

**Okay, the link has absolutely nothing to do with laughing storks -- or does it? --but ex-pat humor is really so funny.