Misnomer

Wow. What a night. Any experience that finds you gagging on a fishbone in the bathroom at a kung-fu themed restaurant is quite memorable. I don’t know what I ate tonight. I wish I could describe for you in vivid detail what a “delicious Chinese meal” consists of. But I can’t. You really have to experience it to understand. Let’s put it like this – I really dislike rice, but I’m relieved when they put it in front of me. My wife and I went out to this restaurant tonight with a dozen or so friends from a nearby university. A couple of them are Christians, most are not. And it was an amazing meal… ’nuff said.

So everyday I pass by our security guards on my way out of our housing complex area. “Security guard” doesn’t really paint an accurate picture. It’s really a couple hung-over jokers sporting ill-fitting uniforms. They’re armed with nothing but their own personal charm, i.e. unarmed. Super secure. But everyday one of them says something I don’t understand. And I always think my Chinese is so awful because I don’t know what in the world he’s saying.

So yesterday St. and I were leaving and the guard said to me, “Qiao zhi, qu nar?” The second part means, “Where are you going?” But the first part is what they always say and I never understand. So I asked St. what it meant. He just laughed and said, “It means ‘George’!” Turns out, all the guards think my name is George. So everyday when I leave, they say, “Hey, George, where are you going?”

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