Adventures in Guangzhou!

Most places I've been to so far have a picture of the dish next to the chinese characters so even if you can't read the menu, you can always point. This place was the exception to the rule though and we were left at a loss for words. As our waitress approached the table and started speaking a mile a minute, I simply started laughing. Steven speaks a great deal of mandarin and was focusing on picking up what she was throwing at us, but several points must have been lost in translation. He ordered some random dish that he knew of and then looked at me with a quizzical eye. I asked him if he could manage to order me something with chicken and rice and he said sure. Side note- one thing I have noticed so far is that the chinese in Guangzhou barely ever eat rice. They seem to either eat noodles or simply go without a starch during most meals. Not what I expected... So anyhow, Steven does his best to order me some grub but got frustrated when the waitress didn't seem to understand. He said one last phrase and she walked away. When I prompted him for an explanation of the discourse, he said that he told her, "Whatever is fine." I laughed once again and waited anxiously for whatever might be brought over to the table.

About 5 minutes later they brought over a tasty looking pork dish and Steven dug in happily. Another 5 minutes went by and I began to wonder what was taking so long. After *another* five minutes of me watching the rest of the place eat I began to wonder, maybe "whatever is fine" meant "don't worry about bringing him anything." This theory made me chuckle once again but after another few minutes they brought over a bowl of rice, some unidentifiable piece of chicken, and a random green-ish sauce. Better than nothing! It was pretty bland all around but suited my needs just fine. Interestingly enough, since Steven spoke a bit of chinese with them, they apparently trusted his ability to use chopsticks. I, on the other hand, was brought a full set of western silverware including knife, fork and spoon since I sat to the side clueless during the ordering fiasco. How humiliating!

Anyhow, I began to wonder-- how much is this chicken special going to set me back? As we brought the bill up to the register I took out a 10 yuan bill, figuring that it was more than enough. So far our lunches had all been in the realm of 5-8 yuan so 10 seemed like a safe bet. The guy rang us up and together we somehow racked up a bill of 36 yuan! Outrageous! Unfortunately we were left with no choice but to pay and walk out (most likely never to return). As we attempted to figure out what happened, I reasoned that we were given the "westerner's discount" of the meal x 200%. I was instantly re-motivated to get a mandarin tutor as soon as possible. The kicker of it all is that despite getting ripped off severely, we still only spent the equivelant of about $2.25 each. Ha!