Well, life has a funny way of doing things, and now I have the amazing privilege of having a seventeen day vacation in Tonga, while my mum attends a conference here. She’ll be preoccupied with her work, and so the only way she can live vicariously is through me 🙂
I had arrived here last Saturday afternoon, had a good dinner before crashing into bed.
Sunday I went to the blowholes and than when to Sunday Mass at the convent of Nuku’alofa’s very own camelite sisters. If you know anything about this country, you know that on Sundays everything is completely shut down.
Finally, Monday rolled around the corner and I got to go on my first ever solo adventure through town. It was during this adventure that I bumped into my very first ever culture shock here in Tonga.
It is a fact that many of the chinese that come here don’t speak English, though funny enough they can speak Tongan. Meanwhile, if you speak to any of their bosses who’ve been around long enough they’re able to speak English and Tongan fluently.
So, on my first day of adventuring through Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, I ended up in a chinese Nail Salon.
The name of the place is called “David,” which I had been later told was newly opened. When I was searching online to find a salon to save me from my overgrown eyebrows I did not find them on google Maps.
However, thankful to fate I found myself have a tropical smoothie at the escape Cafe, in which I looked across the road to find David Nail salon.
The original place I had decided to go to would be a seven minute walk and so I decided that there was no harm in checking this place out.
As soon as I walked in, the place was completely empty except for one very young east asian woman. I sat down and asked if they did waxing, and instantly, it was obvious that communicating in engish would be more than difficult.
She spoke to me in tongan, and I began speaking to her through hand gestures.
It was a really difficult means of communication, followed with confused looks, one word answers, and a lot of guessing from both sides.
I didn’t want to assume that she was chinese, so I kept at my made-up sign language as she began working on my eyebrows.
Then, as I sat there patiently waiting, I began listening carefully to the music that played through the speakers. That’s when realization hit me: these songs are chinese. This woman is chinese.
I can also speak chinese…
Or at least a small portion of it.
So when I turned to her, interested in having my nails done, I attempted speaking in what could be her native language. I Asked her if she could speak chinese and instantly a flicker of understanding washed over eyes.
Finally, we both found a common means of communication.
However, something you should keep in mind is that although I grew up learning chinese in school, my ability to use it is more than just rusty.
It’s horrible.
I was good at passing exams and reading written characters, but when you have no one to practice conversing it with, what you learn in textbooks can quickly rot away.
So there I was, stumbling on my weirdly pronounced chinese words as I asked how much it would be to get my nails done. I showed her some photos I took as inspiration from pinterest. Sadly, she quickly shot it down, saying that it would take too long.
Instead she took out her phone and opened the chinese social media rednote saying “this are some chinese designs. Pick one,”. I didn’t mind the fact that I wouldn’t be able to pick any of the original inspos I had in mind.
I had a feeling it wouldn’t be abld to be done, and only showed it to test the waters.
However, on the app, I found a very cutesy cat design that I thought was simple enough to do. Let me just make myself clear. This is the first time I was getting nail extensions. Also, it was the very first time I got any sort of design on my nails. The very rare times I get my nails done, I usually go for simple and plain gel manicures.
So, long story short, I don’t know shit about the world of manicures.
She took a glance at the one I chose and said, “It’ll take a long time, but not as long as the ones you wanted earlier.” So I thought, okay, that’s totally okay. I’ve got the whole day to spend and I’ll probably be only 1 or 2 hours… right?
Nope.
I was so wrong. So very wrong.
I walked in at 10:30 am.
I left at 3:35 pm.
Let me be clear. There is no one to blame but myself. This was an easily avoidable situation, something which I could’ve prevented by simply opening up a translation app and translating my question to her.
It’s an idea I only came up with later.
While I was in the nail salon, my mum called three times, only to shockingly find that I was still at the place she left me in.
The chinese lady and I made small talk with simple chinese phrases like how did you learn chinese, where are you from, and are you here on vacation?
Along the way, we began using a translation app to talk about more difficult things that my chinese had not developed enough to speak about.
Practising my chinese was actually quite a nice experience, and it did open my eyes to how much more practice i needed, though i was pleased that I did better than i expected.
Anyways, here’s a photo of the nails I got!
Please dont let this experience of mine deter you from David’s nail salon. Their services are quite good, and if you speak to the boss her english is quite fluent since she’s been here for 12 years.
I was incredibly happy with the result and service, and if im ever in tonga again, I’ll definitely get my nails done there.
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