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My Turn
by

Wayne Chan

From The Asian Reporter, V35, #11 (November 3, 2025), page 6.

When Surrealism becomes reality

Allow me to let you in on a big secret.

If you’re married, you are basically an intelligence asset, a spy, an undercover agent, or whatever you want to call yourself. And I bet you didn’t even know it. Heck, I didn’t even know it until just recently.

I should probably explain.

If you’ve been married a while, or even if you’re in a long-term relationship, you and your partner are both complicit. You have both developed a secret language to communicate with each other that is completely indecipherable to anyone outside your two-person circle.

I’ll provide an example.

Let’s say you’re at a social gathering with friends or colleagues you care about. Maybe it’s a party, maybe it’s a baby shower — whatever it is, you’re among people you know.

Now let’s say you’ve been there about half an hour, and something is going on. Either you’re really bored or maybe you’re just exhausted from something. The point is, you want to leave.

The problem is, you’ve only been there for 30 minutes! You can’t just leave and not say anything. Everyone will think there’s something wrong. There’s a two-step process to getting out of these predicaments.

Step one: Tell your partner you want to go home. And step two: Leave without offending anyone.

So you can’t just blurt out, "I’m bored out of my mind! I’m outta here!" This is where the secret language comes into play.

Sometimes the back-channel communiqués are very subtle — a raised eyebrow and a head tilt. Roughly translated, the raised eyebrow means "I’m bored out of my mind!" and the head tilt means "I’m outta here!"

With me and my lovely wife Maya, our covert communiqués require a bit more preparation. For example, a while ago we were invited to an art exhibit by an Asian artist who we didn’t really know well, and we certainly didn’t know their work. We both accepted the invitation. And when I say "both," I mean my lovely wife Maya said we would be there.

Before we headed to the exhibit, we set up our secret language cues. After all, the artist was likely going to give us a personal tour of their work, so just ducking out at a moment’s notice would be a little awkward.

So I told Maya that if one of us was bored or really didn’t like the work, we would say, "Is this work Surrealism?" That was the cue where one of us could come up with a realistic excuse to leave.

To be completely transparent, I don’t know anything about art. Therefore, I must own up to the fact that if I’m bored, it’s very likely because I’m clueless when it comes to these things.

Needless to say, we arrived to the exhibit and within 20 minutes, I was ready to leave. I had no interest in looking at another painting that didn’t make any sense to me, and besides, as we walked in, I saw one of my favorite donut shops right across the street. It was time for the covert communiqué.

Standing in front of another painting, I feigned genuine interest, gestured to it, and said to Maya, "Is this work Surrealism?" I thought I was five minutes away from a glazed donut with chocolate sprinkles.

I wasn’t prepared for Maya’s response: "Actually, I think it’s Expressionism."

Translation: "I want to stay longer. You don’t need a donut anyways."

I was shocked. We hadn’t planned for this. Our coded communiqués didn’t include the possibility of disagreements. But at this point, it was all I could go with.

"Sweetie, I definitely think this is Surrealism. Why don’t you look again."

"No, I’m pretty sure this is Expressionism."

"Muffin. Look around — this whole show is Surreal!"

We stayed. And the worst part was, I never got that donut.

Humor writer Wayne Chan lives in the San Diego area;

cartoonist Wayne Chan is based in the Bay Area.

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My Turn by

Wayne Chan

My Turn
by