After work yesterday, which consisted of a two to three hour meeting with the two Chinese guys I am working with (you could say we are the basketball camp curriculum department), I was very hungry. The 30 minutes busride back seemed to drag on forever and so when I got off the bus I went to the first place that looked decent. It was a Shanghai restaurant that I recognized and I had noodles with beef. Plain, but delicious. I realized I was still hungry so I went across the street to what looked like a Chinese Chinese fast food restuarant (just to be clear, that is not a typo, it's a Chinese version of a Chinese fast food restauarant). I ordered my food (chicken and rice with vegetables), and sat down at an empty table.
As I was waiting for my food when I heard someone talking at the table in front of me, and since there was only 1 person sitting there, I assumed he was talking on his cell phone. After a while though, I noticed he kept repeating similar Chinese phrases and would make odd intonations that weren't normal for Chinese people. The kicker, though, was that he was not holding a cell phone. Near my house in Seattle, there was a group home for several mentally handicapped men and women. I would see them walking along 15th sometimes or at Victrola, and for the most part that was about it. But it was enough to see that there were some remarkable similarities between this man sitting in front of me and those men and women in Seattle - the shifty eyes that looked all over the place suspiciously but without any reason, the repetition of phrases that always had the same low-high-low intonation. I had the feeling that he was mentally handicapped when I saw him, and as I furtively watched him, it was became dead obvious after about 15 seconds that he was. Oddly, he was by himself. I kept expecting someone (family member, a care-taker) to show up but none ever did. He didn't appear homeless and he obviously had the money and state of mind to be able to order a meal for himself. There wasn't any apparent stigma around him either. People acted like they do in America around mentally handicapped, they just kind of ignored him. I kind of wish I would have followed him out and seen where he went and what kinds of reactions he got on the street. Instead, I went to McDonalds and got a McFlurry. Goddamn it it was delicious. It was the first western food that I've had in the almost 2 weeks I've been here. I don't plan on eating at McDonalds or KFC, but a McFlurry every once in a while... I'm only human.
As I was waiting for my food when I heard someone talking at the table in front of me, and since there was only 1 person sitting there, I assumed he was talking on his cell phone. After a while though, I noticed he kept repeating similar Chinese phrases and would make odd intonations that weren't normal for Chinese people. The kicker, though, was that he was not holding a cell phone. Near my house in Seattle, there was a group home for several mentally handicapped men and women. I would see them walking along 15th sometimes or at Victrola, and for the most part that was about it. But it was enough to see that there were some remarkable similarities between this man sitting in front of me and those men and women in Seattle - the shifty eyes that looked all over the place suspiciously but without any reason, the repetition of phrases that always had the same low-high-low intonation. I had the feeling that he was mentally handicapped when I saw him, and as I furtively watched him, it was became dead obvious after about 15 seconds that he was. Oddly, he was by himself. I kept expecting someone (family member, a care-taker) to show up but none ever did. He didn't appear homeless and he obviously had the money and state of mind to be able to order a meal for himself. There wasn't any apparent stigma around him either. People acted like they do in America around mentally handicapped, they just kind of ignored him. I kind of wish I would have followed him out and seen where he went and what kinds of reactions he got on the street. Instead, I went to McDonalds and got a McFlurry. Goddamn it it was delicious. It was the first western food that I've had in the almost 2 weeks I've been here. I don't plan on eating at McDonalds or KFC, but a McFlurry every once in a while... I'm only human.
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