the man in the chinese buffet
One of our regular hangouts is a Chinese buffet. It's a neighborhood place, dark and comfortable. I like the grilled fish and the teriaki chicken and Tricia goes for the sweet and sour chicken and snow peas.
Tricia was watching ER or something on the television and I was watching the fish in the aquarium when we heard the guy a couple of booths over call to the waiter. He asked him if he would get his wallet out of his jacket which was on the seat across the table, explaining that his own hands were greasy and he didn't want to wipe them on his jacket. The waiter obliged and started to hand it over, but the man shook his head and directed him to open it up and take out some money. He told him how much to take to pay the bill and then asked him to put the wallet back in the jacket.
The hostess watched us watching him. Later, after the man had left, as she stopped by to refill our iced tea glasses she told us that he ate there twice a day every single day, usually alone but sometimes with a companion.
Posted by Bill Hopkins on November 3, 2003 09:09 PMTrust is refreshing.
Posted by: Joel at November 4, 2003 12:54 AMWhy didn't the man use a napkin?
Posted by: Kathy at November 4, 2003 06:10 AMIsn't it nice to live in a place that allows you to trust people? AHHHHH
Posted by: Mary Lou at November 4, 2003 10:01 AMIsn't it nice to be able to feel trust anywhere?
Posted by: Joel at November 4, 2003 07:50 PMWas it trust? I couldn't be sure myself.
It struck me that it could almost have been a form of bullying, an expression of power to get someone to perform for you a menial task in such a way as to demonstrate that you had no fear of them.
He was a large man, not exactly elderly but older; and he talked louder than was necessary (which is often the case with people with hearing difficulty, although I saw no other signs of this).
Am I the only one to think thusly. Am I less inclined than most to assume the best in someone.
Or perhaps I have just done a poor job of conveying the sense of the scene.
Posted by: bill at November 4, 2003 09:14 PM
That's how I felt when I read the story. I didn't make a comment just in case I was misunderstanding what was going on in the scene. Maybe it is over reacting on my part, but my first questions, as a non-white myself, were, "Was the waiter non-white? Was the man sitting down, white?" If they were then my first reaction would be, it was bullying. If I had been the waiter (and I have been, and something similar happened to me once in Oregon... in response I let a tray of lukewarm soup fall onto the cutomer's lap and was promptly, justifiably, fired) I wouldn't have put up with it. Maybe I'm completely wrong about this, though, so I want to be very careful before I make a judgement.
If it was bullying, then it is very, very interesting how other readers made their own comments about what they read into the story, especially if they were white. It shows how people who rarely, if ever, experience the humilation of being looked down upon for being who you are, whether for being of a different race, sex, age, or whatever, but especially race, might probably see something that is happening in a completely different light from someone who does experience these things. It shows how difficult it is to see how someone else might perceive or feel about a situation or event, and how differently we all see the same event. Personally I focused on the customer's attitude... others focused on the unattended wallet.
Posted by: Miguel Arboleda at November 5, 2003 09:11 AMright miguel. the waiter was Asian and the customer white.
Posted by: bill at November 5, 2003 08:06 PMIt's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.
Posted by: Samuel Alexandra at February 28, 2004 02:50 AMyou've been reading too many fortune cookies Samuel
Posted by: bill at February 28, 2004 07:23 AM