Firefly

Don’t Mess With A Browncoat

(I work in a movie/TV memorabilia store. Most of the stock is sci-fi related. A boy approaches my station.)

Boy: “Excuse me, you sell stuff like Klingon to English dictionaries, right?”

Me: “We surely do. There’s two in stock at the moment.”

Boy: “Okay, so then do you have a dictionary for Firefly to English? I’m like, obsessed with it… I’d like to know what the people are saying when they speak the space language, so I can say I know everything!”

Me: “Oh, it’s not actually a made-up language. They’re speaking Chinese.”

Customer: “Eh? They are not. It’s a space language. It’s set way in the future and everyone lives in space. Have you never seen it?”

Me: “I have indeed. I’m a big fan. I assure you they speak Chinese.”

(The boy looks surprised and then laughs loudly at me.)

Boy: “You’re a lassie. Isn’t Firefly more for guys? There’s loads of fighting and stuff. You can’t know that much about it. Why the h*** would space-folk speak Chinese, then?”

(I pull my keys from my pocket, from which dangles my Serenity spaceship key-ring.)

Me: “I also own the DVD box-set, the graphic novels, cast posters, 2 t-shirts and several other bits and pieces. I’ve even met Jewel Staite. The characters speak Chinese sometimes because after the war, America and China were the only remaining large power countries, who came together to form The Alliance. The culture-fusion resulted in a mixture of both English and Chinese being the commonly spoken tongues.”

Boy: “You just made that up. You don’t even know. I know far more than you. Who’s Jewel Staite supposed to be, then?”

Me: “She’s the actress who plays Kaylee!”

(A second customer in line who has been listening with interest suddenly pipes up.)

Customer #2: “I thought you knew everything about the show? Quit being such a tool and let me pay for my stuff already.”

Boy: “But I just want a Firefly dictionary! This stupid cow won’t help me!”

Customer #2: “You’ll find a Chinese to English dictionary in any big bookshop. Now if you’ll leave the poor lassie alone, you gorram a**, that’d be shiny!”

(I can’t help but laugh and the boy flips us both off, then storms out, kicking a display as he goes. I smile at the second customer.)

Me: “Thanks for that, mate. Always nice to get back-up from a fellow fan.”

Customer #2: “No problem. That boy was a total sha gua.”

(I gave the customer a free Firefly keyring like mine for that. Note: ‘sha gua’ is Chinese for ‘fool’.)