The Chinese Way

 Today Bella, Melinda, Yogi and I went out to run some errands for work. First we stopped at a restaurant to grab some lunch....I wish I had known going in what an adventure it was going to be. It was a noodle restaurant that serves noodles from some province where their specialty is noodles....needless to say it was delicious. But here's the problem: when our food came out, they only brought 3 bowls. If you go back to the beginning of this paragraph, you'll see that there were 4 of us. So where was Yogi's food? (Note: I want you to picture the sweetest, most gentle, docile, kindest female you know. Yogi is this person. Just keep that in mind.) Well after all our food had arrived Yogi waited about 5 minutes and then called the waiter over and asked where her food was. They had apparently forgotten to put her order in. We assumed this meant that they would now put her order in......but not so. Yogi continued to call waiters and waitresses over and ask where her food was for a good 45 minutes and they just kept ignoring her, or as she put it, "they do not want to accept responsibility for their shortcomings." Finally, after Bella, Melinda, and I were done with our meals, and Yogi was "furious", we got up to leave. Without paying. We got to the front of the restaurant and the manager stopped us to talk to Yogi and well.....there aren't even words to describe the transformation that I saw in those girls. All 3 of them were using angry voices and talking in angry Chinese while the manager clearly tried to keep her cool and get us to pay for our lunches. Yogi was very angry and I would have been a little scared if I hadn't been so amused by the stark contrast between the normal happy Yogi that I know and angry Yogi yelling at the manager. After about 15 minutes Yogi turned around and said "Let's go. We will not pay." So we left......and didn't pay. I guess that's the Chinese way: you forget about one person in the party, you might as well forget about getting paid by the rest of them.......
After lunch, I learned a little something about buying supplies in China. What's your first thought when I tell you we need some supplies for art classes? Probably to go to Michaels or Hobby Lobby or Joannes or maybe even Office Depot? What if I told there are no such things as craft stores here.....you'd probably think well, just go to a supermarket. Right? Wrong. Today we went to a bargain market to get our art supplies. I am not exaggerating when I say that when I walked into this place, it took my breath away. There was literally every single thing you could ever want or need. Knick knacks galore. We haggled over prices that were a mere 2 kuai too expensive. After hunting around for about an hour, we had found pretty much every thing on our list, other than a few foreign things, and decided it was time to head back to the center.
On our walk back from the bus, I was messing with Bella and pretending to bop her with the yoga mat that I acquired at the bargain market. She said "I will drink you"....but it sounded like she was trying to say jinx so I corrected her. She had said this a few days ago when I was teasing her and I assumed she was threatening to put some crazy Chinese hex on me....so jinx sounded like the appropriate word. But she persisted "no no, I will DRINK you. Because you are T (tea)......" I couldn't help but burst out laughing at how clever this was and how I had so extremely misunderstood her. When she saw that I understood what she meant she laughed and said "Yes, so be good." Then Yogi piped in with "are you black tea or green tea"....I responded that I supposed I was black tea and Yogi said "good, I like black tea. So I will drink you too." It was pretty funny. And probably the most menacing threat I have ever received.
Some Mandarin for you: today we were walking along and it was suddenly very stinky. I asked how to say stinky and here it is: Chòu (臭豆腐)