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I woke at 4:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, so I watched an Italian game show on TV - pretty sad.
China 2001 - Part Two: Beidaihe
Dougburnett2003-11-23 19:49:32
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the bus I realized how hungry I was. As we were passing through Qinhuangdao, I saw a line of restaurants. I decided quite impulsively to get out even though I knew getting something to eat here might be complicated. The town was about halfway between Beidaihe and Shanhaiguan and surely didn't see many tourists. I didn't expect to find any English menus here.
After I got off the bus, I walked back past several places looking in the windows before selecting one. I walked in and tried to talk to the waitress, but she didn't speak any English. The menu, as expected, was in Chinese. She was busy and couldn't, or wouldn't, take the time to help me. After a few minutes I walked out getting hungrier all the time.
Farther down the road I found a more inviting place. Here the waitresses were standing outside greeting customers. This time I took a different tack - I walked in, sat down and ordered a beer. I knew the word for that: pijiu. Then I got out my phrase book - actually it was just a few pages that I had copied from my guidebook - and started looking for the names of food.
The beer and the menu arrived at the same time. I didn't have to look at the latter too long - it was in Chinese and perfectly incomprehensible to me. The waitress stood, note pad in hand, ready to take my order. I drank a little beer to fortify myself and pointed at the word for Chicken: ji. "Well," I thought, "That's a start." The waitress smiled one of those weak half smiles - I guess she was hoping for more direction.
Taking the initiative she picked up my phrase guide and started looking through it. As she read I looked up at her. She was in her late teens or early twenties and wore a lovely red silk uniform. Soon she found the word for dumpling (jiaozi) and pointed to it. Now, we were making progress. "Yes," I exclaimed in relief, "I'll have chicken dumplings."
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