Dumplings for Free

About a half hour ago I had an interesting experience.

I was sitting downstairs at XiJiaDe, the dumpling restaurant I mentioned a few days ago, by myself with my back against the wall eating boiled peanuts and celery, delicious.  It was about 3:15pm, Becky was out, we had foregone lunch because neither of us was hungry, at least until 3:15pm. 

XiJiaDe is usually pretty busy during meal times, but it wasn't meal time, there was a young woman sitting a few seats to the left of me, also with her back to the wall, and two other tables occupied in front of her.  The wait staff wasn't quite as bubbly and friendly as they usually are, but quite helpful and otherwise pleasant.  I had a plate of boiled peanuts and celery within just a few minutes and dumplings within ten.

From where I sat I could see most of the restaurant, the sidewalk fifty feet directly in front of me, and everyone walking in towards me through that door.  To my right, much closer, was another set of glass doors that led into the grocery store that XiJiaDe is attached to.  A man in his thirties was standing on the other side of those glass doors holding a small white puffy-furred dog in his arms, apparently he was waiting for his wife because she was standing by him a few minutes later. 

I made a rough estimation, while I was sitting there, that about half of the people coming in from the sidewalk were using XiJiaDe as a shortcut to get to the grocery store.  It's about half the distance as going around to the front door.  Personally I didn't like doing that, walking past all those smiling XiJiaDe employees, with their little white caps, makes me feel sad, like I'm showing up at their house at dinner time but not staying.  Other people are more callous I guess.

As I was sitting there wondering how I was possibly going to finish my last three dumplings, disliking the attitude on the face of that small white puffy-furred dog, and wondering how many people actually used the dining room of my beloved XiJiaDe as a short-cut an old woman with most of her front teeth missing appeared from my right, she must of quietly come in through the glass doors past the self-righteous white puffy-furred dog. 

She dressed normally enough, but she had a blank but wide-eyed stare, where you can see the white part of your eye all around your iris, a little scare, and she some sort of pamphlets in her hand.  She came closer to my little table and said something quietly in Chinese that I didn't understand.  I thought she was about to ask me for something or try giving me the pamphlets in her hand but instead she mumbled something else and reached down nonchalantly and snatched one of the slippery dumplings off of the serving plate in front of me with her bare hands and popped it into her mouth.

It took me a few seconds to recover from this.  I might live in a strange and fantastic far-away land, but this sort of thing has never happened to me before.  I don't think I had much of a visible reaction, confusion mostly, I think I was pretty relieved that I didn't have to finish all three of my dumplings.  In retrospect I should have offered her the rest, which I never ate. 

After realizing what had just happened I looked around me.  The woman to my left didn't seem to notice, I was hoping for an astonished look.  I'm not sure how she missed it, there wasn't much else going on.  The old woman wandered around the dining room for maybe 20 seconds and then left. 

Was this just a normal part of life here?  Or did nobody notice?  I looked over at the man holding the white puffy-furred dog with an attitude problem, he and his wife were talking to each other and smiling, for a second I suspected they were smiling about me, but they never looked at me.  If they were laughing at me I doubt they could have avoided looking at me.  So it's just me, the old lady, and my blog who know about this so far.

When I was dating my wife she was surprised at how many people would approach me on the street, or while I was pumping gas into my car, and ask me for change.  Apparently I have a look.  Do I look like a guy who freely gives away dumplings and change?  I never actually give away change.  But if you're quick you can probably score a dumpling from me.  I'll probably just look confused and slightly relieved that I don't have to eat it.

Floor Plans & Dumplings

I few minutes ago I was procrastinating and wandering from the living area into the kitchen searching for food, living up to my reputation as a "snacker."  It was dark, only the kitchen lights were lit, lighting up the living area from far away, and I couldn't help but notice that my wife was re-watching some old TV show that had been saved on her laptop way back when we lived in America.  Due to being daily immersed in a foreign language and culture and due to slow and restricted Trans-Pacific Internet connections: recorded American TV shows are extra valuable to us "Expats" here in China.  Like cigarettes in prison.  But what struck me about this TV show, at that moment standing in a dimly lit room eating my second tiny bag of some sort of vanilla cookies that had a suspicious faint moldy taste when I got to the bottom of the bag: was the floor plan.  The floor plan of the set of the TV show.

If I'm honest I'd have to say that what "struck me" was something self-absorbed, just about myself, I realized that I had a subconscious obsession with floor plans.  Becky had her earphones plugged in so all I could see was actors silently moving their lips as they walked through a spacious apartment from room to hallway to room.  I was feeling a little sense of frustration at the size and layout of the apartment, how many rooms did it have?  Was there a hallway running along the side of the apartment or down the center with rooms on either side? I had seen this show many times and many scenes had taken place it that same apartment.  I just couldn't picture the layout properly in my head.

I also realized that I had the blueprints for the Starship Enterprise NCC-1701-D, all 42 decks, in a box somewhere in my parents garage.  I couldn't bear to throw the away.  I might have them send it to me.  There's a pattern here.  At one point, when I was probably about 20, I pulled out all of the (D-Sized) blue prints and taped them to the walls of my bedroom.  It took up more than one wall, kind of like a crazy person's padded cell.  Only I didn't have them up for very long, eventually I got bored with them and took them down, that's why I call it a "subsconcious obsession" instead of just a plain old "obsession."   I think I worried about them getting damaged, walls are dangerous places.

Also I usually I don't remember my dreams, but occasionally I'll remember them, and most of time all I remember are buildings and rooms.  In other words, layouts and floor plans.

But before you go thinking that I should have been an architect, I must tell you that I don't think I'm any good at it, at understanding and visualizing floor spaces.  Like for example, here in China we live on the fourth floor of a fifteen story building.  The bottom two floors are retail space.  There is a dumpling restaurant basically right underneath us, on the first floor, or partly underneath us, it's complicated.  I can't go into that restaurant without thinking about it, wondering if I'm standing three stories under my bed or under the living room, and I'm pretty sure part of the restaurant extends under our neighbors apartment.

I know what you're thinking: He lives over a dumpling restaurant?  How convenient!

Yes, don't be jealous, the dumpling restaurant is about 15 feet from the "lobby" door on our first floor.  We go down the elevator, out the door, turn right, walk 15 feet on the sidewalk, and into XiJiaDe (喜家德).  XiJiaDe is a chain with hundreds of dumpling restaurants, it takes great pride in it's dumpling quality and the cleanliness of it's restaurants.  And I can tell you that I can't think of any restaurants in the States, especially chains, that are cleaner than XiJiaDe.  I have seen them more than once tip their dining tables onto their sides so that they can mop the bottoms of the steel pedestals of their tables.  Their dumpling assemblers stand in a glass windowed assembly area and wear plastic face masks for cleanliness.

Why don't I just give you a link to their website: http://xijiade.com.cn  (I should sell ad space eh?)  You can even watch one of the videos that I've seen a hundred times playing on their dining room TVs on an endless loop.

I can also tell you that Becky and I have dined there scores of times.  It's fairly cheap, the food is pretty good, it's open past nine, the wait staff is very friendly, and, one of my favorite features in restaurants here, is that they have pictures on the menu so I know exactly what I'm ordering without a dictionary!   It's our comfort place.

If you come and visit us here in China we will take you there.  So far I think everyone who has visited us has gone there.  Whether they liked it or not.  And if you follow my infrequent blog entries and you know about my subconscious obsession you can help me figure out what part of our apartment the table we sit at is directly underneath.