💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › replies › 2824 captured on 2023-12-28 at 17:58:44. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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This story made me feel fuzzy inside. It is such a beautiful thing when you connect with someone without even talking each other's language.
Like this old man from Malaysia that fixed my bike. I don't speak Malay and he doesn't speak any other language. Well, I know he has two kids and one studies in the city. I have a photo with him.
It also helps to the warm feeling that I'm Portuguese, from near Lisbon. Portugal is a very nice place to live, people are usually great, weather is great (in the center or south), it's a shame it has been dragged down. It feels like the land of no opportunities, compared with other countries in Europe. At least the education is pretty good (in terms of standard western education) and many of us have been able to go outside and explore new endeavours.
If I can help with anything at all, just say it!
It is such a beautiful thing when you connect with someone without even talking each other's language.
I know, right? You'd *think* there's only so much that people can use sign language for but it works surprisingly well. Yours is quite a feat! Mine is... less impressive, the back story is that, while I don't speak Portuguese, I do speak two other Latin languages (including French, which I've heard quite a lot of in Lisbon), so I can understand quite a bit. Answering is the hard part, I have to smile awkwardly and gesture like a retarded seal, or risk offending every culture in the area by speaking a disarticulated mixture of Spanish and French sprinkled with the few Portuguese words I know.
It feels like the land of no opportunities, compared with other countries in Europe.
I grew up in a land of no opportunities, too. I know what you mean. It's demoralising and it feels unjust, and I think part of the reason why I liked Lisbon so much was that it sometimes felt a lot like my home town from thousands of kilometers away. While on a conscious level I know that some opportunities you just have to carve out for yourself, you just run out of energy every once in a while. I sometimes find myself getting pretty angry at life because I have to struggle for things that others can just walk in and grab. But, you know, it is what it is. Tolkien said it best: all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
If I can help with anything at all, just say it!
Man, thank you so much, but you got a kid to take care of so don't even think about it!
Plus, it's pretty much of a fool's errand, that place was an anonymous joint on a small back street about halfway between Restauradores and the park in Praca da Alegria, where it's full of tourists and, therefore, full of restaurants, too. Other than the occasional weird tourist like me, I doubt anyone except people who lived on that street ever went there. *If* you happen to know someone who lived around there and who doesn't mind an email from me, I'll take it, but that's all I could ask for :-).