Ordering Dinner

Everything is an adventure, from squatting over the Eastern toilet to ordering a meal at a restaurant. We face many unexpected events even in everyday activities. There is not only the language barrier, but also cultural expression and expectations often differ. Sunday night Jon Anderson and I had dinner at one of the restaurants across the street from the foreign student dorm. We were given the customary Jasmine tea. The waitress waited in anticipation for us foreigners to order our meal. Plan A was to trying to remember the few butchered words we had learned from our Chinese language classes - ji is chicken, mei fan is rice. I wasn't feeling too confident. So I turned to plan B, which is open the menu and point, while knowing in the back of my mind that I could be ordering the cute turtle I saw when we walked in. I've perfected this method, and when I get home and start doing that at English restaurants that will be another bridge to cross. I find this way of ordering much more adventurous, for the few of us in the group that can eat anything, it works like a charm. So after a few points and lots of gestures like, flapping you arms like a chicken to get your point across.

As we sipped our tea and waited to see what surprises they had in store for us. Unlike America, where everything you've ordered comes to your table at once, the Chinese bring out each dish as it is ready. So every few minutes the waitress brought out another dish. Thankfully, no turtle tonight. One after another, dishes of scorching hot food poured out of the kitchen. Six dishes in all! I couldn't believe it. We slowly devoured each dish, one at a time. Each bite, filled our bulging stomach as we shoved delicious Chinese food down our throats. Uhhh! After moans and groans, we ate it all, two of us ate a meal for six people. It only cost 54 yuan (Six US dollars), a meal that would have cost fifty dollars in America.

- Clementine Nyuk Moy Lue