In my neighborhood, there are many restaurants. Some are big, but most are little mom & pop places that serve cheap food and take up narrow storefronts going back much further than you might expect. Of these, there was one in particular that I’d gone to frequently since my early days here. I liked it because it was clean and the food was tasty, but also because the people working there were nice to me. By “nice” I mean that they treated me like an adult human being. Aside from the occasional friendly but ill-fated attempts at conversation that we might make, I was left in peace to enjoy my meals. And then, one night, when I went there to eat, they were gone. The place was the same, but the faces were all new. And when I walked in, for these new people, it was like the circus had come to town. The cooks all stopped what they were doing to stick their heads out of the kitchen’s serving window and stare at me, and no matter what I said to the waitress, she could not…or would not understand. It took the wait staff a solid minute of deliberation and snickering to figure out that I wanted a bowl of rice not because my Chinese was incomprehensible but because my white face was. I ate quickly, wanting to leave. When they tried overcharging me on the bill, I knew I’d need to find a new place to go. One of my friends had once taken me to a small restaurant around the corner. It was one of those dingy looking little places that can make foreigners, myself included, instinctively nervous when we walk by and glance through the window. The unsanitary look of these places, our own culinary prejudices, and the chilling echoes of expat (as well as some local) gastric horror stories sometimes make it difficult not to quicken your step back home and open up a bowl of instant noodles. But when I’d gone there with my friend that one time, our food had been pretty good. Now, hungry again, I went back. I gave my order. The boss lady wrote it down. And five minutes later she brought it out...with the rice. In the months afterwards, I’d go back there at least once a week, sometimes bringing new people by, sometimes alone, sometimes late, when they themselves would be eating. And slowly, one of those little things that you can’t really put your finger on but you want to grow began to form. The family – at least I think it was the family – began to recognize and acknowledge me, and I them. Everything, however, was essentially unspoken. Aside from putting in my orders and once having a very brief conversation with one skinny, bespectacled boy who had been working on his English homework at the table next to me, we never tried talking. Some of this was, of course, because of the language barrier and self-consciousness, but it was also because of the culture. Hardly anybody here ever learns anybody else’s name. People here (myself, again, included) have been going to the same barbers, the same restaurants, the same shops for years without really knowing that much about the people that we meet there – the kinds of things you just pick up by being there and by being engaged…the kinds of things that can transform the most mundane, flimsy little thread of necessary interaction into some sort of real human bond. I also find that, as I stumble along trying to learn the language, I can remember words and phrases better if they have to do with what I’d like to say to the living, breathing people that I want to get to know – culture be damned.

And then, one night, I went back to this little place and they too, were gone. And I couldn’t help but think that, if someday I ever do figure out how to communicate in the way that I really want to, these people – some of my biggest, albeit unwitting motivators – won’t be around to hear it. It takes quite a bit of effort to not get depressed over that.

Note: This essay appeared in the February 21, 2008 Beijing Review.