It’s Thanksgiving for us already…but I won’t go into the turkey details until we’ve actually had some. We’re gathering with some other Americans from our team to celebrate this afternoon. I am told there will even be pumpkin pie!

There’s many things to be thankful for this year and the things that quickly come to mind are,
a.) water,
b.) warm shelter,
c.) good health
d.) family and friends,
e.) plumbing that allows me to flush the toilet,
f.) no leaks in my bathroom or workers in my home,
g.) being able to communicate with others,
h.) oh yeah, food…

Now these are all surface sorts of things, but they can make a big difference in one’s quality of life. Which brings me to a somewhat unrelated anecdote…

Yesterday, the day after our 3rd month-a-versary here in Xining, I found myself ordering (you got it) carry out from the restaurant we ate at our first day here. These things are never planned (and we missed it by a day this time) but it seems like they just work out this way.

We hadn’t ordered carryout for a while because our "cheat sheets" were missing.

What do I mean by cheat sheets?

Well, ordering food here in China is a bit tricky unless you can read many Chinese characters. I can only read a few hundred (none of which are related to food). So to help out with this little problem, someone came up with idea of creating a resource sheet which has a.) Chinese characters for food names, b.) The pin-yin which helps with the pronunciation and c.) the English name for the food.

So, as an example on the left side of the sheet there would be the Chinese character to the right of this are the words ‘tang cu ji rou‘ and to the right of this would read ‘sweet and sour chicken‘.

We were given a set of these cheat sheets and have used them on numerous occasions. The waiter or waitress can read the characters you point to and tell you if they have the dish you requested or not.

A week ago or so ours mysteriously disappeared and since I was the one who had it last I have felt the burden of responsibility.

Since a lot of these cheat sheets are used among the expat community I decided to ask a friend if I could make a copy of theirs. They kindly agreed to look for their cheat sheet so I could borrow it. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find it and ended up giving me a Mandarin phrasebook instead.

As I walked to the restaurant to get some sweet and sour chicken (which is our favorite from this specific place) I looked for the Chinese word in the "Ordering Food" section of the phrasebook.

Would you believe it wasn’t in there?! In the poultry section there was nothing similar to what I call "sweet n sour." Trouble. So I looked up the pork dishes because I thought surely they will have sweet and sour pork as a common menu item.

Nope.

Well, since I knew how to say chicken I thought I could wing it…if I could only order our vegetable side dish, i.e. broccoli.

Would you believe me if I told you broccoli was not in the "Vegetable" section of this handy little phrasebook. Cabbage, carrots, eggplant, celery, you name it; but no broccoli! Not even in the glossary!

It wasn’t looking good.

But I was determined to get sweet and sour chicken and steamed broccoli.

So I stepped into the restaurant…ah, familiar Chinese faces.  They might remember me.

I told them I wanted chicken (ji rou.)  They understood that.  Good start.

They asked what kind? So I looked up the word pineapple since I knew their sweet and sour sauce had pineapples. How many chicken dishes could possibly be served with pineapples (in China anyway)?

The lady taking my order made a suggestion of what I wanted. I assumed she understood my meaning. Another gentlemen behind the counter consulted with her regarding my order and began looking through a booklet he pulled out from under the counter where I was ordering.

I thought she understood what I wanted, but I wasn’t sure.  I wanted to make sure she understood…

I saw a phone at the counter and asked her if I could call a friend (kind of like using a lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire…)

No.  She flat out refused me the opportunity to call a friend!

I was a little miffed and wanted to offer to pay for the call. Since I didn’t know the word for broccoli, I decided to retrace my steps and tell her that the chicken had PINEAPPLE in it. I scrambled through the glossary to find the word again…

As I’m sinking quick, all of a sudden the helpful gentleman pulls some papers out of the book he has been carefully leafing through. He places it in front of me and I immediately recognize the papers…simple white sheets with typed words, scribbles here and there, and things circled in blue pen.
My cheat sheets. 

This is where the cheat sheets had mysteriously disappeared to.  I must have left them at the restaurant the last time I came.  And they recovered them and kept them!

It was a beautiful moment. I told the gentleman, "This is mine! I forget it" (Zhe ge shi wode. Wo wang!) and they laughed at me.

Fifteen minutes later, I had my sweet and sour chicken, broccoli and rice in nice styrofoam containers quickly bagged. I also had reclaimed the prized "cheat sheets" (I wasn’t too sure if I’d have to fight for them at first, but he must not have valued them too much…) I guess now I need to make a trip to the closest copy machine, huh? Oh, the irony is always thick around here. And I’m just thankful for the occasional laugh.