Boris No Problem

There are people who you remember for a long time, no matter how brief your time with them; I’ve accumulated dozens over the years. One guy’s name was Boris Khvan. I first met him upon arriving in Melbourne and associated with him for about a year, right up until his departure back to Tashkent. True, I had been told about him back in Tashkent by a childhood friend Arsenty Kan, who had ended his story with the words: ‘Boris has golden hands’. I learned later that Arsenty was right. Boris was, you’d have to say, talented with his hands. As he himself said, ‘I only have to watch how something is done once, then no problem’.

For example, before his arrival in Australia Boris had never driven a car. In Australia a car isn’t a luxury for immigrants, it’s a means of survival. Boris managed to get an antiquated little Toyota from somewhere, had one driving lesson, then off he went - without a driving licence, but with a piece of paper from the driving school saying he had applied to sit the driving test. It’s difficult to say how convincing this document was, but it was brought into play whenever the police, visibly surprised that this old crate was still going, pulled Boris over.

Boris later gave this antiquated car to me gratis – an unthinkable gift in my former country, especially back then in the mid-1990s. Yet despite the decent amount of driving experience behind me, I couldn’t drive it. It was just so clunky. I managed to roll the car to a mechanic who, with barely a glance at this heap, categorically refused to run a mechanical test on it. The stubborn little horse would only obey its previous owner. And only Boris himself knew how he had managed to zip about in it. So it sat in front of my window for a few months, as a memorial to Boris, until I towed it away to a car dump. I even had to fork out a bit for that - people aren’t the only ones who have to pay for a spot in the cemetery.

By the way, Boris was well educated; he had graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Tashkent. But, as he briefly told me about this fact from his biography, he had quickly become disappointed at the thought of grinding away as a Soviet engineer for the rest of his life. ‘Why the hell hang around in the engineering office for one hundred roubles a month,’ he summed up his own story, adding, ‘Later I was making a hundred a day in construction’. He slipped his higher education degree away somewhere and went off to work as a labourer on a building site. It wasn’t difficult to work out that he had started moonlighting as a contract labourer. And where could you still cop a Bradman a day? Not as a worker with the construction directorate.

I understood the step he’d taken. At some time I, having a Candidate Degree Certificate of Medical Science, (the qualification comparable to the level of an Australian PhD) had been forced to search for some extra money too, and every so often had done cash-in-hand taxi-driver work in my own car ‘Combi’. You can always do with another few bucks for petrol and cigarettes. (One or two tchervonetzs (10-rouble banknote) for petrol and cigarettes were not for nothing). One time I even made a hundred in one go. I remember at night unfolding the well-thumbed one and three rouble notes and gathering them up in a pile, satisfied with myself and life.

But Boris stood out not just through his ability to work with his hands. I would say his fundamental qualities were his thoroughness and reliability. A shortish, solid bloke, he was almost the physical twin of tennis player Michael Chang, and he was strong on his feet, in all senses.

By the way, Boris was secretly proud of his amazing resemblance to Michael Chang. He broke out in a smile when I told him. He knew Chang’s profile well and had carefully followed his sporting career. On top of that he had purchased a tennis racquet and other accessories and went regularly on the weekends with his son to play tennis (such luxuries were inaccessible during the working week).

His father had been a general; in the 1980s I read a long article in the magazine ‘Ogonjok’(the most popular magazine in USSR) about him, accompanied by a full-page portrait. Incidentally, in 1951-54 his father had taken part in peace negotiations on the Soviet side during the Korean War. Apparently Boris had adopted his father’s self-discipline, orderliness and precision. Everything he did was well reasoned and logical. I would attribute the desire to do things perfectly to national character.

He was always calm and imperturbable. Along with his laconic nature, his most-often repeated expression was ‘no problem’. So we called him ‘Boris no problem’.

I couldn’t begin to guess how my life, and of course, my family’s, would have ended up if not for Boris. I had actually come here without a cent to my name, with only a couple of English words in my old grey noggin, and unable to get welfare.

The only thing I had was a strong desire to work. And not because I was born or raised a workaholic; on the contrary, laziness had always been a good mate of mine. Rather it was because I realised that we couldn’t survive here without work. But for some reason my passion for work had not impressed any employers; they politely turned their noses up at me.

Boris helped me and my family survive in Australia. On the weekends he would do all types of work himself for free at the Korean Christian church; he was in his element there. He knew many parishioners and through them found me work on three occasions when, through no fault of my own, I had lost my previous job. And what it meant for me, without any language and with a far-from Schwartzenegger-like physique, to get even the blackest of black work, only God and I know. This God had sent me a guardian angel in the form of Boris.

When, after almost three years of bureaucratic drudgery, the Australian Immigration Department still refused Boris residency, he was of course upset, but didn’t show it. He announced: ‘If they don’t want a good worker, then they won’t have him. Australia’s loss’. And after adding the invariable ‘no problem’, he flew back home to Tashkent.
Later I heard rumours he had settled in Washington, the US capital, and had opened his own shop there. No problem Boris.

Good luck to you!


Sharpen your knife more often

Until my arrival in Australia I fitted into the category of ‘intellectual’ or white-collar workers. Whether I worked with or without intellect is not for me to judge. But the fact was, while my hands weren’t as refined as Svjatoslav Richter’s , you could hardly call them proletarian. And I had only a vague understanding of physical labour. Not including, of course, picking cotton; but who in Uzbekistan hasn’t done that?

It was only here, after watching Boris Khvan (whom I’ve already told you about), did I understand what it meant to work properly – without any fuss, economically and free of mistakes. In a word, like a master. We used to cut off shark fins for shark soup, an exotic delicacy found in the world’s best restaurants. Boris demonstrated the cutting procedure so easily that it seemed a piece of cake. But when I tried half an hour later my fingers were numb, my palms were covered in blisters and scratches, and I was soaked through in rivers of sweat.

I hear that in Japan the master never explains to the student how to do this or that task. The student is obliged to work it out themselves by first observing the actions of the teacher. Boris also appeared not to notice my torment. He was completely oblivious to my colourful mutterings as he was constantly listening to his walkman. At first I though he was a music lover, but it turns out he wasn’t wasting any time and was familiarising himself with English.

Only a couple of times did he say in a half-voice through his teeth:
'Sharpen your knife more often’.

For some reason I didn’t heed his advice; the pain in my right hand made me pay for this at night. In the end I eventually became a proficient cutter – I’m no idiot – and started sharpening my knife more often against the honing steel while producing simultaneous deft moves with the knife and shark fins – like a tailor at a sewing-machine. But even after I got better, I still filled the bin at only half Boris’ pace.



They don’t know who the Turks are.

I stuck at cutting shark spines for a couple of months and am still proud of my time there. Not everyone managed this, but Boris was beyond compare. I remember how once a tall, young handsome representative of the Turkish nation (but born in Australia) turned up at the factory. He was a nice guy, companionable, with a smile from ear to ear, and spoke beautiful English. At first I was surprised; what wind had blown him here – surely he could find cleaner and better paid work? But I soon learned why.

He was a great lover of working his tongue, but preferred not to trouble his hands. I was surprised when the laconic Boris put his walkman aside and began to chat animatedly with him in English. I communicated with him in Turkish, which is similar to Tatar.

The young guy had a fine sense of his own worth and would often repeat: Olar kim turk olgany bilmiyormysh. Men kostererim olarga. – ‘They don’t know who the Turks are. I’ll show them.’ Who and what he intended to show, I never understood.

He would often call me over to help him lift or move something heavy, even though he was twice as young as me and about that much stronger too. But I would take on and do what he was supposed to do, without his help. I also employed the Japanese method of teaching: use no words, just actions. But the young guy didn’t understand my hints.

Within just a couple of days he complained with surprise to me that the boss had asked him not to come in any more. In short, he had showed the boss just who the Turks were, and they – I mean the boss and his son – hadn’t understood. Or perhaps they had understood and decided to spare themselves. But the young guy had only spent a few days with us. And all thanks to Boris, who was in good with the boss and had asked him to sack the Turk.

‘His English was good’, Boris gave the explanation for his noble deed to me.



I can accelerate!

It’s easy to be good when you have it all and you risk nothing in showing kindness. It’s even pleasant to be good; you become filled with love and respect for yourself. But then to be able to share when you find yourself suffering hardship and facing tough competition is not something given to everyone. As immigrants, many of us find ourselves in such situations. Which is why immigration is quite a reliable test of kindness. It clearly shows who is who.

I wasn’t the only one Boris helped. I knew at least several people who were, or should have been, grateful to him. Although it’s also well known that not everyone is familiar with the feeling of gratitude for kindness.

One of these was a young man who introduced himself as a Muscovite; something I wasn’t so sure about. He was a Korean-Russian, like Kostya Tzu, and even looked like his famous countryman. He had a roundish face with prominent cheekbones and plump cheeks like a hamster’s, slightly slanted eyes, and an earring in one ear. He was also short, but not athletic or with Kostya’s broad shoulders; in fact he was the opposite - roundish from all angles.

And most importantly of all, as distinct from the determined Kostya, this comrade – I don’t exactly remember his name, perhaps Valentin - was what you would call a tumbleweed. He rolled about the whole world without a compass in his head. I never asked Boris where he’d picked him up, but this guy blabbed on to Boris that he was waiting for his family to come out from Russia, he didn’t have a cent to his name, and that he had to put a bit away before his family came. Therefore, supposedly he couldn’t afford to pay any rent and was searching for someone to spot him a place to stay, with his absolute guarantee being that he would pay them back. Boris, being a good soul, gave him a place to stay and found him work.

Which is how I came to have the pleasure of working with Valentin. It was difficult to imagine a more useless worker. But then he was excellent at gas-bagging. He dribbled on to us without a break about how he had worked as a head chef in one of the capital’s restaurants, what a big-shot he was, how a Japanese master chef had almost flown to Moscow just to try and learn the secrets of preparing sushi, and so on, and so on…
For me, a former (at the time) psychiatrist, it was a snap to recognise him as a typical delusional liar.

When Boris heard his river of eloquence he didn’t utter a word. Instead he made a point of concentrating on his work, at times just casting reproachful glances at this bullshit artist. Clearly Valentin noticed; he checked himself and said:
‘What, you want I work harder? I can accelerate!'
But all we got was more bullshit.

The following day Boris brought Valentin to work again. Obviously at home Boris had brainwashed this bludger because the latter took to his work with a sullen look and kept surprisingly silent. But within a couple of hours Valentin suddenly gave a loud scream, doubled up in pain and assumed the favourite position of all malingerers throughout the world. As a doctor I sometimes think if only God hadn’t created a spine for slackers to clutch at. Which is how the poor bloke sat out the rest of the work day in the car. Boris didn’t bring him to work again.

Later on Boris complained to me that this sponger wouldn’t lift a finger, spent all his dough on beer, which he drank all day, and then at night, while tanked up on beer, would turn the television on full volume without a care that the landlord had to go to work the next day…

I was amazed at Boris’ patience. When I told him angrily to piss this bludger off, Boris reasoned that Valentin’s wife was coming and it wouldn’t be good to kick him out at such a critical time.

‘But there’s no bloody wife!’ I yelled, which had no effect on Boris.

Even when Valentin drove off in Boris’ car without his permission, and later rang Boris well after midnight to give him the good news that he was stuck somewhere without petrol and that Boris would have to call a taxi and haul himself over to the other side of the city, his deed ended with no consequences.

The ‘crowning achievement’ of his stay with Boris was thievery. Boris was careless enough to take this mongrel along on a visit to the house of a countryman from Tashkent, where Valentin pinched a gold ring. They made no complaint to the police as it was too much hassle, but this time Boris’ patience had run out. So Saint Valentin (this ‘Saint Valentin’) had to head off fishing for some other trusting soul.

Apparently this drama with Valentin made a strong impression on Boris. For a long while after he would periodically mimic Valentin, nodding his head and muttering, ‘that’s nothing’, with his lips twisted into a supercilious grin.



The shield and the sword

For a few weeks I worked in a Korean factory preparing bone meal under the tutelage of my countryman Boris. I used to receive all the boss’ instructions through Boris’ interpreting and as such there were no linguistic problems. But after Boris left to work at another more profitable job I was left to deal with the boss one on one. Or rather, not with the actual boss, but with his son.

It would have been better with the boss, who was an affable smiling bloke, but was always away. The company’s business wasn’t going so well and the competitors were applying pressure so the boss was busy. Therefore the factory was under the command of the boss’ son, a young man with cold, cruel eyes  – the complete opposite of his father.

It was clear that without Boris I would have to learn to cope with English. Circumstances dictated that the first English I heard came with a Korean accent. The boss’ son often ordered me to ‘take obo-de’, but there was no way I could make out what he wanted from me. I understood he wanted me to take something, but what this ‘obo-de’ was remained a mystery.

I asked everyone I knew who had the hang of English, but they shook their heads with puzzled looks. Finally, it was Boris himself who enlightened me: ‘obo-de’ meant ‘over there’. It was English, but a Korean variant. Boris’ explanation came much later. In the meantime, when once I stared back blankly in response to ‘obo-de’, the mini-boss muttered a contemptuous ‘shit’ through his teeth. This was one of the first English words I learned properly - and off by heart too.

One time in answer to one of his ‘shits’ I added loudly and clearly, ‘i mech’ ('Schit i mech' translates from Russian as 'The Sword and the Shield', a novel by Russian author Vadim Kozhevnikov). Now it was the mini-boss’ turn to stare, gog-eyed
(goggle-eyed??) at me, which is just what he did.

Let them learn our ways!