« All Change round here | Main | Only in China - 36 Hours of Chaos »
January 19, 2006
Soup or Hand Wash ?
A few months ago when I first arrived in China, I was taken to lunch by a senior guy at eBay China as we had some mutual friends back in the USA and Hong Kong.
Anyway, we meet and the guy takes me to this real nice Chinese Noodle Place in the same Plaza as their China HQ next to People's Square in a compalex called Raffles City.
The restaurant looks very nice and comfortable and I order "Spicy Sichaun Chicken" and he orders "Stir fry Something" ...
The meal arrives and it looks delicious and we dig in, about 5 minutes later the waitress (xiaojie) brings a bowl of warm/hot liquid with some lemon shreddings to me, this is quite common in China when you are eating food where your hands need a good wash afterwards, especially when easting prawns/shrimps etc.
So I finish my meal and wash my hands and say my goodbye etc etc.
Fast Forward >>>> to last weekend.
My flatmate Johan and I are just done having a workout in the Gym and I suggest we should go have lunch at the same place as the food was pretty good and it's not too far away from our gym, so off we go in a taxi and arrive at destination.
I choose same dish again "Spicy Sichuan Chicken" and he does the same on my recommendation, food subsequently arrives just like last time and then 5 minutes later the Bowl for the Hand Wash arrives.
Johan then asks for a spoon, and the Xiaojie brings 2 spoons, 1 for him and 1 for me, at this stage I am wondering I am missing something here.
He then proceeds to Drink the Handwash from the bowl with the Spoon whilst I am looking on in Shock, he notices this and says "What's so funny", I reply "You are drinking Hand Wash, not Soup" :)
Now Johan jas been here for a couple of years and is a bit of China expert and frankly speaking, if it wasn't for him advising and guiding me on the correct path here, I would have escaped a long time ago.
So to settle the matter and an excuse as always to practice my Chinese, I call the waitress over and ask "Excuse me, what is this", at which stage she looks at Johan and I and replies ... "SOUP"
So there you have it, I sat infront of a senior guy at eBay and washed my ahnds in a bowl of Soup without him twitching an eyelid, and on our many subsequent meetings he never mentioned anything.
"Mr, Noles, how could you ?"
anyway it's 8.30am and I am off back to Bed, as Germany's leading SEO decided to wake me up at 6.45am via cellphone to ask the distance between Shanghai > Hong Kong via air! (am still working out how I am gonna get him back for this)
Posted by shak at January 19, 2006 6:16 AM
Technorati Tags
Comments
Great story. I wonder what the stoic eBay guy was really thinking when you started washing your hands in soup :)
Posted by: shor at January 19, 2006 11:25 AM
Hahaha. So you started going to the gym now....
Posted by: Zach at January 19, 2006 9:31 PM
Not as bad as if someone had the
"soup" after you dipped your fingers in it.
Posted by: Wei at January 19, 2006 9:54 PM
Excellent story! but if i were the guy i think i would have burst out laughing...
Posted by: Luke Nolan at January 24, 2006 8:40 AM