LITTLE NIBBLING

It was almost as if they knew I was coming. The dumplings arrived in record time, the hot sauce appeared as if by magic. Hot milk tea. Of course I left a decent tip (over forty percent), because if one enjoys a place, and likes eating there, one wishes to be remembered favourably when one returns. Plus they've seen me there before.
So it's a question of 'face'.

Face is very important. It's why I shan't visit the bakery where I used to go for afternoon on Wednesdays. If one is just taken for granted, what's the point of even going there?

Something about elderly C'town ABCs rubs me the wrong way.


I am not personally responsible for whatever snubs you resent from growing up during the fifties and sixties, heck, I wasn't even in the damned country at that time.
So if you're going to be so bitchy, kindly get stuffed.

And you can have your own darn table.
I'll just avoid you entirely.


Miss the pastries, though.


It's been three years since I stopped patronizing a different business, which like the bakery in question I won't name either. Both of those places are near the clinic where my regular care physician works and the pharmacy where I get my regular refills.

I like the neighborhood, just not all of its people. But as a kwailo I am quite unremarkable, and if I don't say anything in Cantonese I just don't stand out.

Still, dumplings, milk tea. The occasional bit of fish.
Fresh groceries. Smuggled cigarettes.
The absence of polka music.
All good stuff.


Some people there are warm and pleased to see me, irrespective of whether food is involved. A richly generous segment of humanity, courteous and considerate. Medical appointments down there are something to which I look forward, and visiting the dumplingeries is always enjoyable.

Radiology department in September, part of the annual check-up.
A follow-up doctor's visit to that the week after.

Then breakfast.



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