The official parlance

On a day that ought to be declared auspicious, Usman mooted this great idea of “speaking in codes”. While at first I thought it was pretty pointless because at the time we were in China where English isn’t really widely spoken, the merits of a secret language dawned when we left China for Hong Kong.

Well it wasn’t really a secret new language or anything ridiculous like that. Basically it was just English with unnecessarily extravagant words, which we hoped would confuse even the most advance English speakers. We coined it a similarly unnecessarily extravagant name – “the Official Parlance”. Although it was hilarious that Usman never heard of the word “parlance”.

I can’t remember much of it anymore but we eventually had to speak like that for the rest of trip outside China, especially in Malaysia and much of Southeast Asia. We were so used to it we probably didn’t stop speaking in that way even when there was no one else around. We even started to speak a Chinese version of Official Parlance while we were in Thailand.

Unless you speak a completely incomprehensible language to the host country, a code language is definitely essential when you travel. Especially when it comes to haggling, purchasing or whenever you need to make quick decisions or when you need to say that something is suspicious - you need secret communication. You avoid offending people and you can strategise the next course of action without having to whisper or hide in a little corner somewhere.

In retrospect, it was funny speaking like that knowing secretly we looked so stupid.

-Ihsan