Dinner with an Altruist

The night before Emily and I had eaten jiozha (steamed dumplings) at a noodle shop one block from us. It was crowded with people (so far our best tip for avoiding food poisoning) and they were willing to work with our limited verbal communication skills but very flexible and broadened non verbal communication skills. We sat down and Emily and I were forced to make a decision immediately as the waitress stood by our table waiting to take our order and even though we looked clueless she didn't seem to understand that we needed some time to try and make sense of the menu. Somehow we ended up with dumplings that tasted really good for only 3Y or less than 50 cents.

We agreed to go back to that place and give it another shot. Tonight it was so packed that there was no place for us to sit. I'm sure the waitress saw us coming and wanted to run and hide, bus she directed us to a table with two other Chinese gals. Then she stood by our table again until we ordered. We had already figured out how to say the same thing as last night in mandarin but as luck would have it, they were out. Then we went through a variety of things that we thought they might have until finally the girl sitting at our table took pity on us, translating for us and ordering food for us. The sweetest part was that she asked us if our food was OK and if we had enough to eat. I was just thrilled to have anything to eat that was edible. Even though they were finished, they stayed through the entire meal to make sure that we did not have any more problems and knew how much we needed to pay. She also asked us if she had been of assistance to us. It was very nice. I knew they wanted to leave us and go shopping (I had asked them of their evening plans) so I tried to eat quickly. I was a very genuine and thoughtful act.