SO NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN!

Walking around the neighborhood late, long after nightfall. There are few people about, even down at the bar on the corner where they have fire baskets for warmth. Three Mexicans across the street were having a cheerful conversation with beers and masks. Two women at the bus stop recognized me, we exchanged greetings.


好耐冇見 ('hou noi mou kin'), haven't seen you in a long time!
係啊，一年 ('hai ah, yat nin'), indeed, a whole year!


The last time I saw either of them was before lockdown, when I was heading into Chinatown to meet a friend. Whom I also have not seen for that long, but we keep in contact on Facebook.

I am sincerely glad to see that the two of them appear to be well.
Having wished them a good new year, I continued my walk.

Both of them work nearby, in the food service industry. Which has been hit rather hard these past severeal months. So I would imagine that they have become primary breadwinners for their families, but make considerably less than they used to, which probably wasn't much to begin with.


Many people I know are in that exact same demographic. Food industry Cantonese American. I'm glad to see that most of them are holding their head above the water, but I sincerely wish the "flood" didn't come up so high. Down from the high-end restauarants, which charge enough that only doctors, lawyers, and computer programmers can afford to eat there, the profits of the SF food-industry are not particularly good. It's a job, but realistically it's a lousy job. Especially at most ethnic cuisine eateries other than Sushi and French, of course.
Places where white Americans are accustomed to cheap food.
And balk at paying Caucasian labour prices.
Because, you know, because!

I rarely ate out with other people before the pandemic, as I prefer Chinese or Indonesian food, not every one's cup of tea, and my fellow Caucasians who have not been in the food service industry usually don't understand tipping. 'Surely ten percent on a chow mein tab is enough?' Actually, it isn't. That would be a buck, rounding up. Perhaps you should consider contributing a five dollar bill to the tip? If your bill came to less than fifteen bucks, no one is getting rich here, and your utensils have to be bussed and cleaned after you leave, the table has to be wiped and made spotless, and the next white person is probably a cheapskate, might even be a European who doesn't believe in tipping.

Before Covid I budgetted tips at Chinese restaurants and chachantengs at thirty to forty percent of the bill. Two or three dollars at bakeries and self service counters. Those people have to live too, and I wish to remembered as an all-right guy the next time I go there.
Rather than the usual cheap mofo who is rude and leaves a mess.
I am looking forward to being able to do that again.
Good people, atmosphere, and food.


Hardly ever did I eat Sushi or French food.
Too much bourgeois snootiness.
You pay for that.



AFTER WORD

A black woman at the drugstore complimented me on my pipe. She likes old school briars like that. She still has her grandfather's pipe, at home, where her parents live. If she's not opposed to tobacco and open to suggestions, I may eventually talk her into smoking it occasionally, and give her some pointers on suitable tobacco mixtures, keeping it lit and enjoying the experience, and the necessary cleaning, because a clean pipe is a happy pipe.
And pipes bring back memories and moods.




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