Friday, March 9, 2007

Wouldja like fries with that?

This is Friday. That means that tonight is date night—the time that Desiree and I have set apart to spend together. We live on a hall with nine other American English teachers, and while they’re great, it’s nice to be by ourselves once in a while, right? Well, as alone as you can get in a city of twenty million people, anyway.

So, we’re going out for dinner. This is trickier than it sounds, since we aren’t exactly experts at getting around. Plus, Des wants to go to a mall that’s half an hour away (which is practically next door by Shanghai standards). We manage to catch bus 624 into Zhoupu (pronounced “Joe-pooh”), then hop the 581 towards Shanghai proper. Somewhere along this bus route is CenturyMart, a mall in which Des was hoping to find a romantic little sushi restaurant.

We managed to disembark at the right place, but just as we were walking into the mall, we realized something: no Benadryl. Worse yet, I had also somehow managed to forget my little notebook that contains my helpful “no peanuts” phrases. No notebook + no Benadryl = no Chinese food. We searched the mall for an alternative, but finally concluded that there was only one place that was absolutely safe to eat: KFC.

If you’ve seen our other pictures, you might already know that people love KFC in China. It’s the most popular American restaurant, and they have helpful picture menus. Theoretically, a foreigner should be able to just point at what he wants . . . but in reality, it’s not always that easy. Des pointed out some popcorn chicken, corn on the cob, and a funky peach custardy-looking thing. I figured I’d keep it simple and ask for “Number Two, please,” and then, when the cashiers looked at each other and started speaking Chinese, I helpfully added, “with fries.” This is important, because it could also come with some kind of weird corn-slaw. The cashier smiled at me and said “Pepsi?” I nodded, and she rang me up: 52 yuan, or about seven dollars. I started adding in my head; the stuff I had ordered only amounted to about 41y, but by the time I got it figured out, they were bringing out our food . . . and then some. We left the counter with one more order of fries and Pepsi than we had ordered, reasoning that we could save everyone confusion and embarrassment by just eating our extra food. Only, when we sat down and started eating, one of the cashiers came up, set another chicken sandwich on our table, gestured helpfully at it, and left.

So our first Chinese date out turned out pretty well. Romantic ambiance? Not so much. Food? American, and WAY more than we wanted. But we made it out and back without dying. I call that a good date. And seeing the lettering on that kid’s jacket made it all worth it.

Dave

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay, it took me a few seconds to figure out "SPOONY", but we did get a chuckle out of it. Sounds like quite an evening out.

Love,
Mom W

ChineseTalberts said...

It definitely wasn't on purpose. I know this because the front of his jacket actually had it correct. : )

We see stuff like this all the time. It makes me wonder the real meaning of all the cool asian symbols that we see on American clothing and housewares. Sometime soon I'll post a bunch of funny signs that we've seen.

Anonymous said...

I would love to see the funny signs post! My mom wants to send you an epi pen. Why don't you have one??! Shame, shame kiddo.

Anonymous said...

I would love it if Kat's mom would send an epi pen, too. And I'm sure Dave's mom would, too!

Love,
Mom W.

Anonymous said...

Dave,
You know we love you and are just concerned for your health and welfare.
Love,
Mom W