August 2 2006 - Cantonese Lesson Lunch

I had a Cantonese lesson today. Toward the end of the lesson my instructor said, “I am having lunch today with two of my other students that are learning Cantonese. Would you like to come?” Would I like to come! I jumped at the chance. She said they were eating Shezwan Chinese, and she said it was spicy; but I like spicy, so I said no problem. But, I asked apprehensively, “Are you going to make me speak Cantonese?” She just smiled.

We hopped in a taxi and went off to SoHo. Thrill number one – we confidently entered one of the little “hole in the wall” Chinese restaurants where the menu is all in Chinese (well there were pictures). Her other two students joined us shortly. One was a Japanese lady who had lived in the US (Illinois) for 3 years, so her English was very good. She was learning Cantonese, and it was just as difficult for her as it was for me, BUT she could read the characters, and she said that helped her a lot. She had been taking lessons for 90 hours, so she was definitely ahead of me! (I’m up to 22 hours now). The other lady was actually from Shanghai! She could speak English, Mandarin and Shanghiese, but she still needed Cantonese lessons! Of course, she could really speak well, but Sandy (the teacher) said she made a lot of mistakes in the tones.

It really was fun. Sandy ordered for us, with me and the Japanese lady translating what we could. She asked us what we liked. Most of the food was pretty familiar to me, but I did turn down the opportunity to “eat organs” as Sandy delicately put it (as in “do you eat organs?”  And she didn’t mean a musical instrument!) She did order one thing I had never had before – Kale with salted egg yolk. I tried it, but once saw enough! Everything else was good. Just chopsticks, but that isn’t usually a problem for me. The only thing was the minced pork with tofu – those slippery squares are hell to eat with chopsticks! I complained to them, and they laughed – “use your spoon, silly!” Oh…well sure. That was a lot easier.

We mostly talked English, with every once in a while Sandy talking to the other two in Cantonese and translating for me, or asking me to say something specifically in Cantonese that she knew I could say if I thought about it.

At the end of the meal she said that she was going to go get us a special treat. She left the restaurant and was gone for quite some time. When she returned she had 3 Styrofoam containers. They had a Chinese dessert, which was basically a sweet tofu soup-like concoction. We were supposed to sprinkle this red sugar on it and eat it. It was….okay…definitely better with the sugar. The 3 of them thought it was great; to me it was an acquired taste that I wasn’t sure I wanted to acquire. They all told me it was “good for me”, good for my mind, body and complexion! Well, okay…

It was fun; we exchanged cards, and I think we will try to do it again sometime.

After the meal, we all walked down the escalator together (yes, we had to take the steps, since we were going DOWN). They were going to IFC; I was going to one of the lanes to get a bracelet fixed. I was going to walk to the YWCA after that to sign up for a hike, but the nearby typhoon made it very windy and rainy so I gave up and took a taxi instead. The taxi driver missed his turn and had to go around the block. He was VERY apologetic and wouldn’t take the full fare; in fact he tried to return some of the money that I insisted on giving him. ONLY in Asia….