Everybody Sing Arong!.....
Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 8:06 pm
Reminds me of an episode in a hardware store in Saudi Arabia, 1983-ish. I was in there chatting with my Pakistani friend behind the counter that day. A young Korean man came in, wearing the uniform of a local service company. He came to the counter. "I need something to crean tires."
My friend looked at him. "Crean?? What is crean?" They went through this a couple of times, and I thought I'd better help. I explained to my friend that many East Asians had trouble with the letter L which they pronounced R. "Obviously he needs to clean tires." Hamza looked at me. "What does he need for tire cleaning?" "I don't know, you're the hardware guy." The Korean man was getting more and more frustrated. He got down on his hands and knees on the marble floor of the store, and mimed cleaning the tiles. "I want to crean tires!" he said. You know that feeling when the light finally dawns . . .
