Lunch

 

 

       Our next destination was a restaurant for lunch.  The memory of the mother and her child haunted me and I could only nibble on food while listening to those around me chatter. 

       When we entered the restaurant, I noticed how it was such a fine, beautiful restaurant.  After we walked in, our delegation walked upstairs and were separated into four rooms.  In the room I was in, the room was a near perfect square with a table in the center and a window taking up most of the adjacent wall.  There were two elegant, cushioned chairs beside the window.  The floors were carpeted.  It was truly gorgeous.

       I had never been in a five-star (er, four-star?) restaurant before in my life.  The closest I had to anything like this were the graduatioin banquets from fifth and eighth grade.  It was different, being in such a fancy restaurant. 

       The table was situated in the middle of the room and featured a lazy-susan.  A lazy-susan is a turning-table that food will be placed on a circular table.  It makes it easier to access food because you can spin it to the dish you want.

       I had not been looking forward to using the lazy-susan prior to  traveling to China because, traditionally, one would use their chopsticks to pick up food from the plates on the lazy-susan.  I was still a semi-germophobe and sharing dishes with other people's used chopsticks was not appealing to me.  This fear was broken whenever the waiters placed dispensing utensils alongside the dishes. 

        When the dishes came out, I was glad to see some vegetarian options.  There was actually another vegetarian within our delegation, I was happy to learn at lunch.  We also had three options for beverages: Sprite, Coca-Cola, or bottled water.  (Because of the pollution in China, tap water is not safe to drink.  When we traveled places, we always carried bottled water with us instead of refillable water bottles).  The options of Sprite, Coca-Cola, and bottled water became our only beverage choices during lunch and dinner for the next eighteen days.

      

Rice, tofu, cooked cabbage, and asparagus





 

 

       Lunch quickly became fun when everyone picked up their chopsticks.  Some could use them with ease, others could not and struggled to pick up anything at all.  It was quite comical.  Some people eventually caved in and asked for a fork.

 

       I had taught myself how to eat with chopsticks when I first entered high school.  I had put them in my right hand and would force myself to pick up food to train myself how to use them.  Often times I would pop a bag of popcorn and eat it with chopsticks.  If the popcorn grew cold before I could finish it, so be it.  I was stubborn in my way to learn how to eat with chopsticks.

       When I was in Chinese class at school, we had a competition with chopsticks.  We had to use chopsticks to pass a ping-pong ball through a line of people then run around the classroom to the finish line without dropping the ping-pong ball.  It was extremely difficult but also tons of fun.  Each team dropped the ping-pong ball several times and the sound of it bouncing against the hard floor resonated within screams and yells within the groups.  It was extremely fun.

        But before we began the game, Zhang 老师 (laoshi, or teacher Zhang) went around to see how everyone held their chopsticks.  To my utter devastation, Zhang 老师 told me that I was holding my chopsticks wrong.  I was shown how to hold them correctly, and I had to reteach myself how to hold chopsticks.  This was a few months before my departure to China.  I was scared that I would never relearn quickly enough to use chopsticks in China. I began to use chopsticks for every meal.  I would be disheartened easily when my meal became cold, and I would revert back to using chopsticks incorrectly to finish my meal.  But eventually I gained the knack of it and I was able, over several moths, to eat with chopsticks properly and efficiently.  To this day I still enjoy eating popcorn with chopsticks.

       After Zhang 老师 had seen how everyone held their chopsticks, she told us something unique.  Where you hold your chopsticks indicates how far away your soul-mate lives.  If you hold them close to the base, your soul-mate will live in the same state, if it's farther up, your soul-mate could live in the same country.  If your hand is toward the middle, your soul-mate will live in a different country.  If your hand is at the top of the chopsticks, your soul-mate would live across the world. 

       When I held the chopsticks the incorrect way, my hand rested at the very top of the chopsticks.  (An indication that my soul-mate lives in China, perhaps? ;) However, when I held the chopsticks correctly, my hand rested just above midway.  Who knows what that means? Maybe I have two soul-mates? Haha.



 

 

 

     After lunch, we were leaving and one of the waiters came in to clean off the table.  As I was about to leave the room, I said 再见(zaijian, or goodbye) to the waiter.  He nodded his head and also said 再见.  I smiled and left the room.

       Before him, every time I said anything in Chinese to someone Chinese, they would reply in English.  It was disheartening and I began to wonder if my Chinese was not good enough.  But when the waiter also said goodbye, I knew that at least he could understand me.  I began to gain more confidence within myself.