"Spunkawallah": Never heard that one. Of course I knew "punkawallah". We always have several standing by in case there's a power outage here in Saigon.
"Spunkawallah": Never heard that one. Of course I knew "punkawallah". We always have several standing by in case there's a power outage here in Saigon.
In the event of a power-cut knocking out his AC, I can just picture Bob sitting in the dark, cross-legged and pulling his punka
SG: I'm not going to be pulling any punka (your use of the word lends itself to ambiguity). The punkawallas we brought to Vietnam are highly trained environmental tech wallahs, as I'm sure you would have surmised.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. It depends on their background and level of English proficiency, what they're looking for and whether a word or phrase has been adopted into daily usage. Take the word 'gay' for instance. It is commonly used and written as 'gay' in daily usage, popular culture and social media, rather than the Thai script เกย์.
arsenal (July 31st, 2017)