Patience

The food comes and he says nothing. They laugh when the kung pao chicken arrives and he obliges by calling it the lao wai chicken. They can tell he is bored so they ask if he wants beer to drink but he says no. He only drinks alone when he is alone and not when he's not. This he has learned from a Dennis Lehane novel.

He realizes he's being an ass by sitting and not eating much and talking even less. But he is the only foreigner there and even with foreigners he can't stand to make small talk. When was the last time he had a good conversation about his hometown sport teams, or a good movie, or some music he likes. He is drifting in a world he doesn't understand and worse yet doesn't want to understand.  And certainly a world that does not want to understand him. The knowledge he's gained from being part of this culture for three years has only pushed him further from his culture while simultaneously closing doors into this one. He wants to sit and rock to his music, maybe Pink's mizunderstood playing "just like a pill" loud and twice.

The dinner drags on. The Peking duck finally comes out and an elaborate ritual of slicing ensues. He's not a big fan of Peking duck, if he never ate it again for the rest of his life that would be just fine. And at the pace this dinner is going it seems the rest of his life may consist of tonight. One hour passes. Then 90 minutes. At the two hour mark desert is brought out. Desert consisting of fresh fruit -- the typical Chinese dinner desert. This would not be so bad except half of the fresh fruit is colored watered masquerading as watermelon. Wait -- watermelon is colored water.

Eventually they head out. He sinks his baseball cap low on his head so his eyes are barely visible. He rejects taking any of the leftovers home. Even though it is 11pm he has a sudden urge to go running. It is Euro cup 2008 night, but he has not Euro cup 2008 friends to watch it with. He thinks to go alone but then thinks better of it. That would be admitting something he's not ready to admit.