it'll grow

ZX was invited over by the American (and Canadian) students for dinner, but I felt weird crashing the party again (even though it means third night in a row eating alone). So after a scary ride home after class in the private (read: illegal) van-taxi-bus thing and not buying fake perfume by the gate of the old campus, I ducked into the 送包子 by the school for some xifan and cold dishes. 

It was busy and they plopped my metal bowl down beside a mother (her son across the table) who had some sort of relationship with the money-collecting aiyi. There was a slight scene when mom wanted to pay that involved aiyi forcing the purse back down onto her lap and lots of discussion about who would be more embarrassed . . . In the end there was a five-yuan compromise - so she'd at least be left with enough face to come back some other time.

Meanwhile the little boy (he's in second grade) has been scooping loads of xifan into his mouth, and has emptied the mushroom plate. He's picked up the plate and looks like he might just march over to get more. Argument done. The mother fakes embarrassment but laughs affectionately, with the aiyi, who's taking the plate to get it refilled. Aren't kids great? Later he asks me how to spell his name in English and what places I've been to. I tell him Thailand (that's a country) and Beijing and when he prompts me to keep going his mother says, "She's been to lots of places that you've never heard of. Now keep eating." Earlier she'd been telling him not to lick his fingers. "This foreigner is going to see you doing that and say, 'this is what little Chinese boys are like!'"

The other day I was checking out a bakery near the center of town, one of the nice ones, and suddenly this bagged roll falls off it's plexiglass shelf and onto the floor. There was no one near it, so we all kinda laughed quietly, and the fuyuan put it back. One minute later, it falls again, and we (I, at least) laugh loudly. And this time when the fuyuan puts it back she mutters with perfect dry humor, 它不给我面子 - It won't give me face!

I've been making it my habit to stroll through every bakery I see. You know, research. Since I am newly poor (relative to before, at least, when I was a "volunteer") everything seems ridiculously expensive and I manage to restrain myself. I prefer the little misshapen cakes from ZX's market street. The ones you buy by the pound, or for one yuan, instead of five. The crispy sesame cookies that get tossed in one of those thinner-than-thin plastic bags (production of which was supposedly stopped a year ago) instead of coming all hard plastic binned or shiny plastic bagged.

On the other hand, it's encouraging to see a growing diversity of baked goods being produced (and bought) in Nanchong. When he was in high school, says ZX, there were just a few bakeries in the whole town. Now there are bakeries - and nice ones - on every corner.

And oh, Regina Spektor. Oh my, she sings pretty.