Chinese Take-out

Tuesday afternoon I was at work preparing for my evening class [I teach a "How to Give Effective Presentations" class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.] when a delivery guy came in with some food and handed it to one of my co-workers. After the guy left James, my co-worker, asked me what I was doing for supper. To which I responded "Nothing, I ate a big lunch. So where did you get your meal from?" He told me the name of this Chinese take-out restaurant, which is humorous in and of itself [not the name of the restaurant, but the fact that we're in China and eating Chinese Take-out. I guess technically anything we get to go in China, even McDonalds, is Chinese Take-out!] But then things go from humorous to downright funny. I asked him very simple question, one which would usually have a very easy, non-humorous response. But then again, were in China....the land of funny stuff!!! So I asked him what he had ordered. His response: "I don't know" [What are you kidding me? How can you NOT know what you ordered?]. "I just asked them if they had anything for 15 kuai, and they said yes. So I told them to bring it to me." Chinese are so stinking funny. I can not even imagine ordering something without knowing what I am getting [knowing my luck they'd bring me onion soup or something like that]! What really amazes me, is that most Chinese people HATE Western food. Yet, they are willing to eat ANYTHING Chinese, as long as it is at a resonable price. You just have to laugh.

Christmas and Chicken Wings

Christmas in in full swing at the Johnson house. The tree is up, presents have been wrapped and placed under the tree, Christmas decorations have been put up around the house and yesterday afternoon we even received some Christmas goodies from our good friend Trace. You should have seen the condition the box was in; I'm actually surprised that nothing fell out of it [well I assume nothing fell out of it].

In a couple of weeks we'll be having some Christmas parties for Jenni's English Clubs. We're planning on watching "The Nativity" while eating some "traditional Christmas snacks" [Chinese joke - if you've been to China before you get it, if not, sorry....]. I'm working on a Johnson Family Christmas video that I will put up on the site some time after Christmas...all I have so far is us putting up the tree and some bonus "Festivus" footage.

So I'll leave you with a story a friend of my told me Monday night during tutoring. Apparently he has this friend who grew up in a Chinese village. One day this boy had an important test that he was studying for. The mother really wanted him to do good, especially since it was such an important test. So she decided to cook him something special, something that he hadn't eaten in a long time. But being poor, she didn't know what exactly that something would be. And then it dawned on her, the family owned a chicken, she could cook him some chicken. But that would be a big sacrifice. That chicken provided the family with eggs, so if she killed it that would mean that there would be no more eggs. So.....she took the chicken, cut off a wing, sewed up the wound and then cooked a chicken wing for her son. The boy got to eat chicken and the family was still able to eat eggs every day.

.....That's China!......