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Published: October 3rd 2014
Happy Face Toast...
OK: so where else do you get happy face toast...“CAN I HELP YOU ORDER SOMETHING?”
“What?? Sorry??” coming out of my day-dream in the quasi-Japanese restaurant in the posh mall.
“Can I help you order something from the menu?” Ms. Wu, a well-dressed and easy on the eyes young lady, politely asked me again.
"Er, right. Sure. OK. Great! Thanks!!" sounding like a complete bonehead.
I was a bit unnerved at this point as it is not normal operating procedure to actually ask a customer if they would like to order something, especially if you are a foreigner: generally you have to flap around frantically like you would to (usually unsuccessfully) outwit a particularly irritating flying insect. It was especially unnerving as the servers in this particular restaurant are about the surliest servers on the planet. I have been here before, and I am not sure why I come back: some inherent masochistic trait, I suppose. The food isn’t even that great…and apparently “NO BEER FOR YOU!” on this particular occasion to add insult to injury.
It turns out Ms. Wu was a customer who noticed I was being constructively, yet playfully, ignored and she stepped in to order for me…the quintessential extremes of
Please, Dad...
Universal pleading for balloons... Chinese hospitality. I thanked her profusely and wildly pointed to something or other on the menu. Ms. Wu called over Mrs. Mole and barked orders at her…quite gratifying as Mrs. Mole is surely THE surliest server in all China, perhaps in the known universe—I was moved to smirk at the bark-down she was getting.
I call her Mrs. Mole (in my inside-voice) as she has the largest facial mole I have ever seen—I now understand why it is called a ‘mole’, as this one actually resembled a small furry rodent clinging persistently to her chin. Now, readers, before you accuse me of being a moleist; if she wasn’t so snarly I wouldn’t even mention it…
Too bad as the majority of people I’ve encountered at school, in restaurants and shops and just about everywhere, apart from the odd bus driver, have been friendly and hospitable. Generally, people here seem receptive to foreigners, particularly when they sense—and it’s not hard to work out!—that you don’t speak Chinese and are a little ‘lost’, literally and culturally. Same goes for most places, though…at least in my experience.
OK—so I have mentioned the noise levels in China in previous missives, what
The War Zone...
...or the demolition site underneath my apartment... with the firecrackers, background ‘music’, 24-hour scooter alarms and such, but today is possibly the worst ever—not that I am whining or anything, but…
The jackhammer, actually jackhammers plural: there are two of them, started up at 7:41am precisely and have been going more or less continually since then—about nine hours so far (including a lunch-break, apparently). The workers are doing something on the ground floor immediately below my apartment alternating between the jackhammer, which actually causes the entire apartment to vibrate with a low-frequency pounding rumble, followed by the eight-pound sledgehammer for more delicate filigree-level work on some random piece of reinforced concrete they are smashing up for whatever reason…
One thing I have observed about China is that if there is ‘some’ noise, there will
always be more noise…
There is something weird about the acoustics in this building: sounds seem to amplify way beyond normal levels—I’m not sure why—possibly the combination of five concrete and steel floors of cavernous rooms with high ceilings and windy stair wells. My handy-dandy decibel meter—I told you it was a ‘must-have’ app!—was actually peaking at 100db during the jackhammering, which is ‘serious hearing damage’ levels, apparently.
Prep...
Just getting it ready on the street... However, the building would make a great sound stage—last time I was here there was a violinist living downstairs who used to practice in the stairwell—no great shakes as a player, but the actual sound was amazing!
(OK—this is getting silly—I am not making this up—as I am writing this, a huge firecracker session is now going off in total dissonance with the jackhammer! AAARGH!) China’s National Day came and went—lots of flags and everyone, it seemed, out and about. National Day commemorates the founding of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) by Mao Zedong on October 1
st 1949. Of course, the world is looking at Hong Kong a bit nervously right now to see what , and how, the Chinese Government will do to resolve the pro-democracy protests there—fingers crossed it all ends peacefully.
The students have returned home for the holiday and, of course, the last class of the day before the holidays the students were a tad restless and all dizzy with anticipation. I let them do ‘in-class’ study on their major group projects (teacher code for ‘not doing too much of anything, really’…) as it would be futile trying to hold a ‘regular’
Watermelon Man
Quiet day at the melon stand... class. I have a translator in-class, which is very helpful and goes a long way towards our mutual learning experience. One of the translators is a recent graduate, Keith (I don’t know his real name…), who is catching on very quickly—he was a little reticent and shy initially, but is a lot more confident even in the last few classes. I asked Keith where he was going for the holidays and he told me that him and a few friends were going “…camping on a mountain top to see the clear sky and stars…”, which made me consider yet again how fortunate we are, especially in Canada, to take seeing the ‘clear sky and stars’ for granted.
Postscript: I went and took a look at what the workers were doing downstairs: it seems they are taking down a very substantial looking brick wall that runs the width of the building—didn’t seem to have made much of a dent, so maybe a while longer…
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LizzieKatz
non-member comment
Stay there!
Merv, it will be a shame when you come back (just kidding)and no longer blogging to us. It has been very entertaining and great for a laugh. Thanks for that. See you soon. xo