one good turn

On the street of the wholesale market yesterday a man pulled the wallet out of my small bag. I immediately sensed what had happened, and grabbed a fistful of his coat as I yelled. He threw the wallet on the ground and calmly walked away while my heart beat with receding fear and growing anger. There were no police or guards in sight; all I could do was watch him continue down the street and fade into the crowd. No doubt he would succeed before the afternoon was up.

In September I lost about 1000 RMB on a Chengdu bus. I felt the bump, but the bus was absolutely packed, and I thought nothing of it until we got off and I found my bag gaping open and the money gone. The other passengers must have watched as the thief opened not one, but two zippers to reach the wad of money. I have no idea how he knew it was there. After I shed a few tears back at the hostel, I swore to Justin that I would make the money back by selling bread and cakes in Nanchong. On National Day we made a few hundred selling bright red Chinese flag sugar cookies, but still my vow goes unfulfilled.

The woman who sold me the cake pan and decorating turntable peppered me with questions about what I would use them for. When she knew that I was seriously considering a bakery she joked about how I, "plan to make money off the Nanchong people," and I joked back that that was exactly my plan. "Good!" she said, "then I'll make money off you!" 

"好！可以!" I laughed.