February 11 2014, Tuesday
Manners
It was Sunday afternoon; I was having lunch in a quiet
corner of a hotel cafe. At the table next to me were two French tourists who nodded with a smile
as I sat down.
Just when my soup arrived, two guests, mother and son
speaking in Putonghua, were seated right next to me. The mother looked young
and the son probably
6 or 7. At that moment, I prayed to myself that they would be an exception to the
hideous stereotypes of mainland travellers as depicted so vividly in social
networks. My prayer was not answered.
In the first place, they were
conversing at the top of their voice though the whole ambience was so tranquil.
After they had placed their order of orange juice and a steak with fries, the
mother asked the boy to recount all the cities they had visited starting with Shanghai,
their home city. He did fluently. Indeed, they had almost travelled round the
world. All the while as he talked, the boy was not sitting properly. He had one
leg stretched out and the other on the chair.
When the juice came, the boy tore
up the wrapping of the straw and threw it on the floor. Next came the steak, he
cut it up roughly with the fries falling all over the table and the floor. What
was the mother doing, texting! The cutlery screeched on the plates raising
eyebrows at them.
The above is a first-person
experience with no exaggeration!
In the first place, they were
conversing at the top of their voice though the whole ambience was so tranquil.
After they had placed their order of orange juice and a steak with fries, the
mother asked the boy to recount all the cities they had visited starting with Shanghai,
their home city. He did fluently. Indeed, they had almost travelled round the
world. All the while as he talked, the boy was not sitting properly. He had one
leg stretched out and the other on the chair.
