As I stared up at the ceiling of graceful undulating crystal flower waves, I realized I spend a whole lotta time staring at ceilings now. But that ceiling in Shang Palace is well worth a gander. Its delicate, but has great volume, and the individual parts make up this perfectly still chandelier that still seems to always be in gentle movement. The lights in the private dining rooms aren't much less mesmerizing and its a darn good thing they're in there... I need something else to stare at besides the unintelligible guests who insist on speaking Chinese the whole night.
Geesh.
They could at least try and speak English for my sake, so that I may eavesdrop with much more ease. Now I stand around looking interested but not too nosy...which isn't hard to do. Actually looking interested is pretty hard because I haven't the faintest idea what they're discussing. Probably buses. And shipyards. Soo...I'm not missing anything!
I have learned the art of "standing by". I might add that I can do this quietly and for a long time, almost five minutes! Hovering has become second nature now...(actually more like 8th nature because I'm pretty sure there's been other natures mentioned before this) and my 7th sense tingles when there's a plate needing changed, or a glass needing filled. (The 6th sense was for seeing dead people, but I hated that experience- so we're skipping on to 7).
Mostly the guests chat amongst themselves, occasionally eating, and every once in a while they actually need more water or wine. That is unless they are "gam-beh-ing" which is a word for toasting, or better known as an excuse to get wasty-faced off of any alcohol present. I've seen it done with wine, beer, rice wine that also doubles as paint thinner, and various whiskeys. Basically they're shots of the beverage, half an average drink and its gulped down all at once. Try doing that with wine...its interesting. And the only reason I know this is because of the group of Chinese people who snagged me after lunch one day, and refused to take no for an answer. Its incredibly rude to not finish your drink, so you must bottom's up, or you'll be...well a rude person.
So next time you are sipping on a nice red, think of us in China- unable to slowly enjoy anything...because its rude.
I do enjoy working there much more now...mostly because I'm not tired, my world is not ending and the girls started teaching me Chinese words. I'm officially a pet parrot. I just repeat what they say much to their delight, and they giggly happily when I say it later in casual conversation. Whenever I say something they didn't teach me they can't express enough astonishment over it. I'm just here for entertainment, but not by my personal choice of methods.
English corner went swimmingly, in that my good friend Richard attended and rephrased pretty much everything I said in English and Chinese. So thank goodness I was there to get the slides going! I know the point of us even hosting the event is to get the ball rolling on the staff learning more English, but my not knowing enough Chinese to communicate the topic of my subject kinda sucks. I did my best to be energetic about movies, the topics and the common words that go along with it but most of the time I sat back with a confused smile as my "class" talked quickly, and only, in Chinese. Next time I'll have more people who speak a higher level of English, so I hope it goes more smoothly then.
The week is half over, I'm looking forward to starting a new rotation, which incidentally is my second to last one here. Can I get a whoop whoop!? Or just a hurray?
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