Happy Chinese New Year!
Game Time!
To start this new year of more writing off
rightly... I have two stories to tell of life events that happened to me
recently.
Both stories are true, but one of the stories has
some false details.
It will be your chance, if you care, to determine
which story has false details. Okay? Let’s start!
[Note: If you few who already know, spoil the
secret then be warned, that’s not nice -_-]
Story #1 - The Cigarette
[A little long, sorry.]
Here is what happened last night (02/02/2016).
I went to a cafe which is owned by my good friend and his
father. After a while I felt the urge to use the facilities so I headed there
and tried to have a go at the urinal but the bathroom was clouded in smoke and
there were two kids (probably 17-21 years old) smoking up the place.
Now my mistake was to treat them like I treat a friend of mine who smokes, whom I have known for a long time.
At first I tried to politely ask him to stop smoking but my
Chinese failed or he just didn’t care what I had to say. He just grinned
stupidly and kept puffing.
I really had to go but the smoke was too thick in that tiny
bathroom for me to breathe comfortably so I did something without thinking.
I foolishly snatched the cigarette from his mouth (as I have
done to my good friend multiple times) and threw it in the sink. Now, to this
guy’s merit he didn’t blow up at me or punch me in the face right away, but instead he was surprised and confused. He turned to his gutsy buddy for
translation but that guy only knew a few words in English and mostly just shouted at me in
Chinese.
I knew what I did was wrong so I said sorry and that I
just wanted to f***ing go to the bathroom. He latched on to that word and
started saying it a hundred times in my face, He pushed me against the wall and
his friend started taking off his jacket (like he was afraid it would get dirty
from a fight?).
I didn’t want to get in a brawl in that small space so I
headed out the door motioning for them to follow as I said, "Come on then
let's go get some translation and see who is right here." Which to them
translated as, “let's go outside to argue about this.”
Well I went and got my friend and quickly told him what I
did and he was like, "Aw… man, you shouldn't do that. Those kids are
"gangsters".
So I was there next to my friend near the front of the shop
and the gutsy kid was all in my face threatening me and talking dirty about my
family in all of three English words. I realized I had started something I
wasn't willing to finish because actually I have been really trying to become a
different kind of person – more patient and wise.
For this reason, I acted rather passive and told him to calm
down but he was getting more and more brave at this point as my friends
couldn’t take sides until the facts were clear to them.
So I knew I was in a losing battle and I just wanted it
over, feeling kind of annoyed that this guy was still shouting in my face and
making a big scene in front of everyone in the shop. I said sorry to the
first guy, whose cigarette I had snatched, and he was like, "no man it's okay it's okay" and I think he knew his buddy was going too far. The gutsy guy didn’t like that I was ignoring his shouting so he came at me with a lot of
force and got in my face and I kept telling him to calm down but he just got more
mad and asked me where I am from.
I probably should have just said nothing but I proudly
stated that I'm American so he shouted "America?!" And spit on the ground, like a
punk in the movies. So then he started adding America to his dirty talk and
then I got really sorry for bringing nationality into it so I just tried to sit
down but he wasn't having it. He shouted "Such-and-Such a place…! You will
DIE!"
He shoved me hard into the front desk and I knocked some
things over though I was still standing.
At this point I was considering if it was worth it to take
him outside and try to knock some sense into him but my friend's dad got him to
go away, where later I was told he formally apologized for the ruckus.
In the end I just sat there with my friend for about twenty
minutes then went and left to bike home. I've replayed it over and over in my
mind a lot and while I know it's basically my fault for foolishly grabbing the
guy's cigarette I hear it is illegal to smoke inside stores. My friend tells me
repeatedly not to mess with useless gangster kids that don't study but those
are the kind of people that I care about the most so I feel really bad it
turned out that way.
My friend’s father said they were regulars so maybe when I
return from my Chinese New Year travels I'll take them a giftly-peace-offering
and say sorry, then maybe at least if that works out I will be able to clear my
nationality from being a negative in their minds.
All-in-all there is a positive result from this event
because I learned a bit about my new self and that my priorities have changed.
I think enjoying fights when I was younger was wrong all along, I just had not often cared about anyone but myself until lately.
Story #2 - The Teapot
[A lot shorter]
Today (02/05/2016) as I waited for the events of the evening,
I passed the time in a small café full of cats.
It was a nice environment and the animals didn’t seem too
interested in the customers so I just enjoyed a cup of tea and a good story,
occasionally looking up to watch the bustle of newcomers and workers alike.
One of the workers whose work seemed more interesting than
the rest was a young man who was clearly at work for the owners of the café,
not as a waiter or cleaner, but more of a businessman – I guess a consultant in
particular from the way he was interacting with the café boss. Whatever he was
doing, he was frequently going in and out of the front door, which I had set
myself up to face in order to keep watch for “would-be assassins”.
After a chapter or more of my story, I finally looked up to
see the boss of the shop hurry outside, look down the street both ways without
luck of finding what she wanted, and hurrying back inside to finish an order. A
few minutes later the consultant man returned, walking quickly, as he
approached the shop holding a small, transparent, glass teapot in his hands.
The front door was the type that could open in and out,
touching the frame only by its hinges by which it swung freely. At the very
moment he was entering the shop, one of the café cats was sniffing around the
hinges and got her head smacked hard by the door as it swung inwards.
The cat screeched loudly, to the surprise and confusion of
everyone else in the room who had not been observing, and ran crazily outside.
This greatly surprised the consultant man and he instinctively
threw his arms out to steady the door, shattering the transparent glass teapot
against the door frame which sent a spray of glass against the wall, onto the
floor, and into a nearby customer’s drink and half-eaten walnut banana muffin.
The café boss lady jumped at the sounds and hurried around
the shoulder-high counter to see what had happened. At the scene of the
explosion, the customer with glass in her food, the consultant man, and the
boss just stood there silently staring, along with the dozen-or-so other
customers, all looking at the mess together.
After a few moments the boss lady motioned for the waiter to
bring a broom and dustpan to sweep up the glass while she attended to the
customer with the broken bits in her food.
The man not knowing what else to do just disappeared,
probably embarrassed, and returned later to post a sign on the outside of the
front door, which I assume was his original job, though I still have no idea
why he was rushing around with a fragile transparent teapot.
