A very silly friend played a very silly joke on me while I was on my work trip in Fji.....
One evening, I asked my friend on google chat whether he wanted any special souvenirs from Fiji. This friend didn't normally ask for any souvenirs apart from postcards so I wasn't expecting any special request. Surprisingly, this time he did have a request. He had read about a local Fijian dessert that was supposed to be "very very very sweet" and asked me to bring back for him. I asked him what kind of dessert it was. He said he wasn't sure but it was "very very very sweet" and was probably made with fruits dried in the sun.
After that conversation, I went out for dinner with my Australian colleague working in Fiji. I showed him the name of the dessert written on a piece of paper, and immediately he said, "This is not Fijian for sure, and it's not Hindi either.... What language is this? I've never heard of this thing... Your friend probably got the spelling wrong.." I said, "I'm not sure what language it is either but it's supposed to be VERY VERY VERY SWEET, made with dried fruits."
I came back to the hotel, found my friend on google chat and told him what my colleague had said. My friend seemed a bit annoyed and possibly insulted, and said, "Perhaps your Australian colleague couldn't read Fijian. I think you should ask some locals instead, or women." I asked him to give me more information on this dessert and he replied, "Actually i just remembered that though it is very very sweet, it also has a surprising saltiness. Maybe it is scientific name?" (My friend was on the minibus when replying to me, and I bet he almost burst out laughing.)
The next 2 days, I asked all Fijians I had a chance to speak to. Reception staff at the hotel, my research partner's driver, everybody in the office, taxi drivers..... Everybody in the office was standing in the reception area, discussing this...
Colleague A: Could it be _______ ?
Colleague B: No, Cindy said it's very very very sweet with a hint of saltiness... _____ is not salty at all...
Colleague A: Ah right...
Colleague C: What about XXXXXX?
Colleague A: Oh.... but it's not salty... but then you do add salt to it when you eat it!
Colleague D: But Cindy also said it's made with fruits... XXXXXX is more like a custard......
And the discussion went on forever.....
I found my friend online later on, and told him nobody in Suva knew about the dessert. He said, "Maybe they don't have this dessert in Suva, only in Nadi. Why don't you try and ask around when you get to Nadi?"
I did. Found nothing, and felt pretty bad about it so I ended up bringing 2 mangoes back instead.
I came back to Hong Kong on Oct 7, and on Oct 8, I learned that there was no such thing as Gnat Ydnic... Well there was... my name spelled backwards.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........................ So Stupid!!
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