Barbara and I were curious about a tea house near work, so we ventured in and quickly found out that we were about to have a very awkward lunch. We were taken to a room with a sofa and a coffee table, not the ideal setting for a meal. We ordered our chrysanthemum tea thinking that they will just give us a tea pot of it and leave us alone. But no. A lady was assigned to pour tea for us for the entire duration of the meal. Were we supposed to converse with her or pretend she's invisible? How could we pretend she's invisible when she interrupted our conversation by asking if I were Korean. There I was speaking fluent, unaccented English and ordering in Chinese, and the first thing that came to her mind was Korean.
To make things simple, we asked the waiter to pick out a couple of dishes for us. We got jellyfish salad, stir fried green beans, sweet and sour pork, and belt fish. The food was mediocre and the service was uncomfortable in that they tried very hard to be a fancy establishment but probably have never experienced it themselves. The result was an alternate universe of good service. We were relieved to leave and will never return. It was a blip in my work day lunch experience.
Jellyfish Salad; Stir Fried Green Beans
Sweet and Sour Pork; Braised Belt Fish
Ha ha ha! thats typical of how many mainland Northern Chinese viewed visitor !!! Actually there are plenty of South koreans tourist visited Shandong , Jilin and Shenyang especially close to Chang Bai Shan ( Jang Baek San in korean ), they are visiting those areas a lot to see their "ancestral land" in the glory days of Koguryeo (Gaogouli) and Balhae ( Bohai ). Thats especially true with recent claim made by delusional korean nationalist to ask China to return the land to them. (kinda ridiculous though)
ReplyDeleteBtw, I had the same experience too in Shanghai during the boat show there 4 mths ago. I had been talking to the marketing guy for half an hour, and during that time I had told him in English that I am an Indonesian Chinese , from Jakarta Indonesia. Later when I gave him my name card printed in alphabets , he immediately returned to me and said " I am sorry, I cant read Korean !!!"
HUh, what the heck was he thinking for past 30 min ????
Oy - awkward meals are so terrible! At least the food wasn't good, so you aren't tempted to return and re-experience the service...
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