Dinner: [nearly] Victorious

Today. I ordered my own dinner. By myself. Did I just hear you scoff? Do you not think that’s a big deal? Five year olds can order dinner you say? Well not in China, they can’t. Well, if they speak Chinese they can but if they don’t–well good luck. But today. I did it. I’ve been in China for a little over three weeks now. And this was my first night ordering dinner for myself, by myself. Every other night leading up to this I have either had to a) find a place with pictures on the menu, point and grunt, b) go with someone who actually speaks Chinese and have them order something for me, c) go to a bakery where I just put the things I want on a tray and pretend like bread is actually dinner, or, my favorite, d) walk into a restaurant and stand there in the most painful awkwardness you’ve ever experienced until the girl behind the register finally just orders something for you and tells you to sit down [seriously. that happened to Brett and I on our first night in Suzhou. oi vey].

But tonight, ah, tonight. I had my list all prepared. I had written down the pronunciation of the food I wanted to order. And.. well.. I got rice instead of noodles (chow fan vs chow fun. it’ll take me a couple more tries..). BUT! The rest was all there! It had sausage (siang chong), egg (gee dan), and was spicy (lah duh) but only a little (e dien dien). Yesssssss! You have no idea how good it feels. And what did it taste like, you ask? It tasted like victory. Maybe tomorrow I can actually get noodles.. ps. the spelling of those words up there is not correct Chinese spelling. it is just how I have to write the words so I can pronounce them, if only semi-correctly.