The Greatest Meal on Earth

I haven't been here that long, but sometimes I feel very comfortable and very at home.  I can get to and from work, I can get most of my essentials pretty easily, I have friends, and -of course- I have the internet.  I can't really manage a lot of semi-complicated tasks, and -I found out yesterday- the book store is pretty much useless to me, but mostly things aren't THAT bizarre.

But then, China every once in awhile needs to assert its Chinese-ness.  I'll reserve for a time when I have pictures a post about the meat-market I found while wandering through the alleys of downtown Guiyang; for now, I'll just tell you about my dinner last night.

I was with another teacher last night, wandering around, and we decided it was time to eat.  Often we'll try to go somewhere with a menu that has pictures, but last night we sort of allowed ourselves to be enticed into an establishment that didn't have this foreigner-friendly feature.  It started off harmless enough, as we stood outside this particular restaurant while I tried to skim the menu posted outside for anything I recognized, until a representative of the establishment took notice and came out to try to talk with us.  My spoken Chinese is extremely rudimentary, so my companion took the lead.  Unfortunately, we just couldn't seem to get much sorted out.  Over the course of a few minutes, at least three other employees came outside to try to communicate with us.  At some point, the other teacher managed to convince them to bring us a menu.  I can recognize a handful of characters regarding food items, but I couldn't figure anything out this time.  At the point we all probably should have realized that our efforts were in vain, we decided to finally go in and just let allow whatever was going to happen to happen.

What followed was at least another five minutes of ordering, including fruitless referencing of a Mandarin phrasebook,  at least one apology from what appeared to be the restaurant's owner ("Sorry, my English....no.") and quite a number of pantomimes of animals (including: cow, pig, and fish!)  

Eventually, we did manage to get served a decent meal, and while the ordering process had been quite an adventure, what really topped off the whole experience was what happened in the lobby about halfway through the meal.

The other teacher and I were chatting when my eyes were drawn to something behind her.  In mid-sentence, I stopped and said "I need you to look at the floor, right now."  There, in the center of the lobby was an big fish, flopping purposefully across the floor.  Wherever it had come from was obscured from my view, but it had managed to carry itself a good 6 feet, given the trail of water behind it.  In my heart, I wanted more than anything to see it reach whatever destination it intended for itself, but -alas- a waitress stepped up and wordlessly, expressionlessly, bent down, picked the fish up, and deposited back from whence it came.  The waitress then returned to work as though nothing had happened.  I was a little too shocked to be certain, but I'm pretty sure she didn't run off to wash her hands. 

And that's sort of been my experience in China.  Nothing ever goes quite according to plan, and nothing is ever quite a you'd expect.  Something, somewhere is always just a little off and it never seems to be in the way that you might anticipate.  

I think my plans for the day included climbing a mountain and people-watching.  Wish me luck!