06. The New Slang
People in India ask tourists lots of things. Sometimes it is about "some smoking," other times it is to come into their restaurant, and yet other times it is the (not so) siren call of the transportation industry, as every turn in the road seems to offer men asking "Taxi?" or "Autorickshaw?" (see figure 1).
In Palolem Beach, the last place where we stayed, the most common question that we heard, though, was that of the people sitting in the shop stalls that lined the main road off of the beach, asking if we would like to come in and look at their shop ("Looking is free!" they insist).
After a few days of walking this same strip of shops and refusing their invitations, a few kids in hippie-crap-selling stalls that clued into the fact that I'm an American, and in an attempt to engage a potential customer (these kids are good), they started to talk like California skater kids. The best attempt at this? When I matched one kid's "What's up, dude?" routine, he replied, "I AM FULL POWER!"
I don't know if he actually heard this phrase somewhere, or if he made it up, but as far as I'm concerned, this should be added to the book of American slang, post haste.
Fig. 1: Autorickshaw: A small taxi-like vehicle, often powered by something that sounds like a lawnmower engine, carries 2-3 passengers, and costs less than a taxi, due to the fact that each passenger is willfully risking death in order to save a few Rupees.
In Palolem Beach, the last place where we stayed, the most common question that we heard, though, was that of the people sitting in the shop stalls that lined the main road off of the beach, asking if we would like to come in and look at their shop ("Looking is free!" they insist).
After a few days of walking this same strip of shops and refusing their invitations, a few kids in hippie-crap-selling stalls that clued into the fact that I'm an American, and in an attempt to engage a potential customer (these kids are good), they started to talk like California skater kids. The best attempt at this? When I matched one kid's "What's up, dude?" routine, he replied, "I AM FULL POWER!"
I don't know if he actually heard this phrase somewhere, or if he made it up, but as far as I'm concerned, this should be added to the book of American slang, post haste.
posted by Nick Thalhuber at 1/16/2005 11:25:00 AM
2 Comments:
I use "I am full power" all the time, mostly in the bedroom...when I plug in my Xbox.
For the purposes of the comment, I own an Xbox.
As for that autorickshaw: holla at my new whip in 2005!!!
Posted by Arron
Mr. Cheney: You'd be disappointed to hear that I got a $1.25 haircut over here (at a little stall of a place called London Hair on a back road in Goa) and now I've been told that I look like I'm in the army now (it looked a little like a buzz cut at first). Imagine that: George W. Bush looking like a soldier. Everybody knows how ridiculous an association that is.
Posted by NICK