Pieces of China: Part 2
Chinese Recollections: Talking and Eating
Someone small and lively is vacuuming the hall carpet outside my room in a bright green skirt suit and high heels.
“Nihau!” sparkles generously from her smile.
“Nihau!” I delightedly respond.
I know only two Chinese expressions — hello and thank you — but amongst such openhearted people, all sorts of friends can be made with just those two.
Conversely, the simplest transaction can turn into a game of charades. I recall trying to order bottled water in a restaurant and ending up firstly with a tube of dried Parmesan cheese, and on the second attempt with a teapot of hot water poured ceremoniously into a wine glass. For me to be in a country where it is virtually impossible to communicate in English helps counter my linguistic complacency, and provides me with a chance to develop more lateral thinking. There are very few English characters written anywhere, and only a small percentage of them form words that make any sense. I find the creative translations and misspellings endearing because they are so confidently presented.
It pays to be careful not only when choosing what to eat, but also where to tread when walking alongside a street. Any crooked paving slab can serve as a miniature fish market or some other terrestrial stall. A missed footing may cost you a week’s supply of raw bean curd, or a kilo of monkey nuts. Mostly the wares are recognisable as food, but are often either dried or fried beyond more specific recognition, or would not be recognisable to my western eye even in their natural form. Everywhere the smell of burning garlic, deep-frying, and pungent herbs. Everywhere the tiny figures of mobile greengrocers bent under the weight of thick bamboo canes - a brimming basket balanced at either end. A breath-taking spectacle is the fruit vendor’s cart: abundance as I have never seen it. Every colour and shape seems represented in its most perfect God-ordained form, in a bountiful, mouth-watering cascade.
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