Football, Mangoes, Missee Lee and Sandwiches


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Posted by Robert Dilley on November 11, 1998 at 15:33:25:

Of course John said "the fifteen". I suspect I really knew that, which caused me to mention that number -- the problem is I have my books at home, and my internet connection in my office.
In regard to "Missee Lee", one irritation I have in reading the book (which I wrote in response to the first "Distilled Enthusiasms"), is the comic-book Chinese accents. I have had many Chinese students (and not a few colleagues) and not one of them has the least difficulty with the letter "r". Someone, somewhere, started the story that Chinese say things like "Velly solly", but this simply is not true. In fact, many Chinese I have known do have some difficulty with the English "l" sound. I remember a student giving a seminar on industrial location and talking of "rinen factories". It took me some time to figure out he meant "linen". Ransome knew many Chinese himself, and it irritates me that he propagates this silly stereotype. When I read the book aloud, I always substitute my best effort at a real Chinese accent. Having said which, it is still a good story. Being old enough to have been forced to learn Latin myself, I can relate perhaps rather better than some. I just wish he didn't make his Chinese sound like something out of the Beano (note to non-Brit TARS -- a children's comic, not the anti-gas medication). My own crew rate Missee Lee last because, they say, it is "improbable", by which I suppose they mean too far removed from their own experiences.
Incidentally, being engaged at this time in re-reading Missee Lee to the crew, on my way through the canon, I noticed for the first time that when the Swallows are chasing after the Amazons on the first day in China ("It's them!) John says as they approach the big-rooted trees "Mangoes". The trees would, of course, have been Mangroves, something much different (and less tasty). Is this a printer's typo in my edition (significantly, I have only one copy of Missee Lee: Puffin 1986), an error by John that AR didn't see the need to correct, or an error by AR?
While I have the floor, I had also noticed an apparent anomaly whilst reading Secret Water. When the Swallows prepare for the Red Sea Crossing Susan says "Peggy's got one lot of sandwiches, and ours are in my knapsack". When they start off "Susan had an empty knapsack on her back". John had the damaged rudder, Titty the telescope and Roger Sinbad's basket. When they reach the mainland "Susan dealt out sandwiches". Who carried them? Did Susan have TWO knapsacks -- if so, wouldn't she have put the empty one inside the other: how would you get two on at once? It isn't really important, but I do get fun out of tracking these little points down. Karabadangbaraka.




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