Tales of Tiffany and David

Tuesday, December 2. Today is site-mate David's birthday as well as the 2nd anniversary of Reid Hollister's death. Thinking a lot about Ellen, Tim and Martha.

I take Tiffany and David out for lunch to celebrate David's birthday. We go to the "chicken" restaurant, where I went before with Debbie and Cynthia. We have the eggplant and egg dish, tofu, and cabbage, and everything is fabulous! While we're eating, we see a plate of something that looks delicious float by to another table, so we inquire. It is chunks of banana in pastry dough, deep fried, with some sort of sugar syrup drizzled over it. Naturally, we have to try it! Fantastic.

After lunch, Tiffany and I wander down the street back to the market, checking out little shops along the way. At the market, I buy fresh green peas - and I mean fresh. They are being shelled right before our very eyes. I'm getting them right out of the pod! I buy a bunch and will freeze some to use later in vegetable soup.


Here are three cute stories about David and Tiffany:

Chinese Costume. Tiffany and I get a lot of attention at school because we are Western in appearance. David, who is half Chinese, is better able to "blend." Last week, they were playing badminton outside our apartment building, and a lot of the primary students were flocking around Tiffany, saying "hello," "how are you?" "what's your name?" and so forth. (It's funny the first ten thousand times it happens but less so after that!) So David says to Tiff, "Don't you wish you had a Chinese costume you could put on like me?"

No Meat. For Tiffany's birthday, David gave her a massage at a place in our neighborhood that had been recommended by one of the teachers. (Interestingly, in China, many of the masseurs are blind men.) As the masseur was working on her shoulders, he said something in Chinese that Tiffany did not understand, so she asked "shen me?" ("what?"). So he says something else that she doesn't understand. "Shen me?" To which he replies, "meo rou" which she understood perfectly. If I haven't mentioned this before, Tiffany is very thin, and "meo rou" (pronounced roughly as "may-oh-row") means literally "no meat!"

You So Chinese. When Tiffany and David traveled to Guilin and Yangshuo, they bought a beautiful painted scroll. Tiffany is reknowned among the WT volunteers in ZZ for her bargaining ability but this was her triumph. The owner of the shop initially asked 350 yuan but Tiffany was willing to pay only 180. The shopkeeper came down fairly quickly to 250 yuan but Tiffany was intractable. They continued to bargain and the woman came down more, but as Tiffany started to walk away, she capitulated. So Tiffany hands over her 180 yuan, and as they are leaving the shop, the woman says to Tiffany "you so Chinese." :) In this particular instance, that is a compliment of the highest order!