In a previous post I wrote about hiking the Great Wall of China on the day before my 40th Birthday.  Here is a cute little story with cute little kids that has a cute little twist.

While I tour around, I always like to take pictures of the locals in their environment. I love taking pictures of kids.  As My friend Jeff and I were hiking up the Wall, we came by the two cutest kids you’ve ever seen.  They were sitting on this little rock just looking around.  They were dressed in their cute little outfits.  They looked like perfect little representations of the Western influence on Chinese cultures.  I wanted to take their picture. But I wanted to get their permission first.

So silently… I walk up to them. I give them a very friendly wave.  Saying nothing… the little girl could see that I could not speak her language.  So she took the lead and waved back.  I pointed to my camera… and then used my hands to pretend to take a picture.  I made my best head-nodding-friendly face. The little girl looked at her brother, they had this wordless conversation, as they thought about my question.  Then looking back at me, the little girl nodded her head.  I made a big sweeping smile gesture with my fingers along my face.  They gave me a big smile.  ”Neeeeee hao!!” I said to them (that means hello in Mandarin… my way to get them to say “cheeeese”.

I took this shot.

I smiled, bowed, and waved good-bye to them.  And as as I started to walk away, the little girl waved and exclaimed in a loud voice:  “We’re from Vancouver!”

Chinese Kids on the Wall

Maybe I should have started with hello?

There is an excellent restaurant in Chengdu China which serves Peking Duck.  Now, Peking Duck is best served in Beijing (used to be called Peking).  This is a given.  But this particular restaurant in Chengdu does a pretty good job too.

Chengdu Taxi - G Srinivas

There was a group of us employees from Intel who wanted to go out and try something different for dinner.  We had already been out to a traditional Hot Pot place, so I suggested this restaurant, which I had been to before. There was only one potential issue; one of our team (G Srinivasan) is a vegetarian, so we would have to make a special order for him, which can be tricky feat. (Quick segue) Chengdu China is a great place to eat.  There is a variety of food found, probably, nowhere else in China.  One thing is for sure; they love to eat meat.  There is meat at hawker stands everywhere you look.  They have meat on sticks which are roasted over open flames.  There are cups of special sauces for dipping your freshly cook mystery meat.

Chengdu China - Rabbit Heads

One of the delicacies there is deep fried Rabbit head.  I gotta admit… they do not look like rabbits.  I thought they were rats.  I did not try these. S0me of the restaurants in the more touristy part of towns have at least made some effort to put English translations on their menus.  I am not sure if this is a good idea.  Sometimes I think I would rather not know.  We were greeted at one place with a paper that advertised fresh Ox Dick.  We kept walking.  Goose Kidneys.  Pass.

Anyways, back to dinner.  This particular restaurant did not have an English menu.  Nor did *anyone* in the place speak a lick of English.  This is typical of Chengdu at this time of history.  You can go all day without finding one person who speaks English. But the BKM (Intel speak: Best Known Method) for ordering is to just point at the pictures. So I took charge and pointed to the Peking Duck picture, and made two fingers.  She smiles in clear understanding.  Then it was time for me to try to order something for G.  There was a picture of a rice dish; but it had vegetables AND meat in it.  I pointed to the rice… and nodded my head.  I pointed to the Vegetables and nodded my head.  She seemed to be with me.  Then I pointed to the meet and shook my head.  She looked bewildered?  Hmmm.  I tried it again.  I was remembering from my Shanghai days… charades do not work in China.  And way out in Chengdu it was even harder.  One problem is that they eat meat all the time… so this probably did not make sense for a lot of reasons.

Peking Duck in Chengdu China

Just then, a patron who obviously had been watching me struggle from her table came to my rescue. She walked over and asked in broken English; “I help you”?  YES you can!  I told her that my friend was a vegetarian.  She nodded in clear understanding.  I asked her to tell the waitress to bring him some rice and vegetables.  She said “of course!”.  She turned to the waitress and starting telling her what we wanted.  The waitress kept looking back and forth from the translator, to me.  She nodded her her head, but kept a puzzled look one her face, as if to say; “I hear what you are asking… but WHY would you NOT want the meat???”  The funny thing was, the translator kept talking to her for, like, 5 minutes straight!  How long can it take to say: “Rice and vegetables?”.  Anyways, she finally seemed to have the order straight. The waitress wrote it down and took off.  I tried to say something to the translator, but she did not understand me very well.  Her English skills were very weak.  So finally… I just said “thank you”.  Then she answered: “De Nada!”.  ”De Nada???”.  I cocked my head like a dog who just heard someone say something after breathing Helium.  ”De Nada??” I said back to her.  ”Oh”, she said… “I mean… your welcome”.  I said to her: “Puedes hablar Espanol?” (Do YOU speak Spanish??).   “Si, Si”, she said, looking at me with disbelief in my Spanish as well.  ”Por que hablas Espanol”?  I asked her (why do you speak Spanish??).  ”Porque yo vivo en Puerto Rico”, she replied.  I turns out, that this young woman from Chengdu studied Spanish in college and landed a job working for an importer in Puerto Rico.  We sat and conversed in the common second language that we shared.  We both laughed at our struggles to communicate in English, and how we would never have guessed that we had another option.   I thanked her again… in Spanish… and we went to our separate tables.

In a few minutes, the waitress brought out a beautiful plate of special food for G.  It was a lovely mix of Rice and steamed vegetables…. oh, and it was LOADED with chunks of ham.

Preparing Peking Duck

Chengdu Taxi

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I was attending a staff meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica in 2007. One night, one of my co-workers from there, Thelma, invited me to go out for sushi with her team.   We went to a nice little sushi bar and had a great meal.  Thelma had invited one of her friends from another group at Intel to join us.  He was sitting a few seats away from me.  After dinner, the waitress asked if anyone would like an after dinner drink.  I told her I would like a Sambuca.  At this point,  Thelma’s friend exclaimed: “Sambuca!? I love Sambuca!”. We both ordered our Sambuca and enjoyed sipping them over some good conversation.  A Sambuca friendship was formed.

"Sushi?! I Love Sushi!"

"Karaoke?! I Love Karaoke!"

After dinner, we had a reservation at a nice KTV Karaoke Bar.  The Karaoke bars in Asia are nothing to shake a stick at.  These are nice.  They usually consist of multiple floors in a high-rise.  The floors are divided up into multiple smaller rooms, each accommodating 10-20 people on chairs and sofas.  Each room has their own TV monitor, mirror balls, microphones etc.   Waitresses come in from time to time to take your drink orders while you sing a mix of American and Chinese songs. One of my co-workers there was really good friend from Costa Rica named Marisela. Marisela told me that she had invited a friend who was in town to come hang out with for the late night.  The room was very dark. We were all singing and generally making fools of ourselves, so I didn’t notice when Marisela’s friend came in and sat down.  After a few minutes, a waitress came in and asked if anyone would like a drink.  I looked up at that time and looked at Marisela’s friend … i thought I recognized him… so I said; “I would like a Sambuca”.  At which time I heard from across the room: “Sambuca!? I love Sambuca”.  Indeed it was the same Intel employee I had meet earlier that year in Costa Rica.  He was working for the week in Shanghai as well, and had joined his friend Marisela.  Of course we had a good laugh and proceeded to hit a few other bars in the area before we all went back to our hotels and collapsed.