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Urging expats to be courteous guests in China
By Jacob von Bisterfeld |
April 19, 2010, Monday
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MY good friend William is a gregarious, affable American, featuring, in addition to an ample girth, a broad smile that, invariably, is accompanied by a twinkling in his steely blue eyes. Nice fellow! Sure, most of the time.
My mobile phone rang and William prattled that he was in need of food and that shared delights are double delights and that I had been especially selected to function as the multiplying factor in William's delights.
I am always grateful, when accepting invitations to obscure and hard-to-find eateries, to be told of the nearest Metro station AND the most convenient exit number to minimize suffering a runaround or worse: getting lost.
To make long story short: I did get to the hostelry, eventually, and finally walked into William's beaming smile, his voice thundering: "Good to see ya, let's go and eat."
William prefers window seats in his quest to see and to be seen. Much to his dismay, though, a full row of window seats was out of commission, confirmed by way of a forbidding, yet highly polished brass sign exclaiming: "No entry."
Now is William not the type who takes "No" for an answer and he proceeded to walk inside the prohibited area, which got all the staff present to nervously proclaim that there would be no service in that section, so sorry, and "may we show you gentlepersons to your seat, please."
My friend elevated himself into his war-mode and read the restaurant staff the riot act in a loud voice, leaving no doubt as to what stupid clowns they were for blocking off prime window seats at prime lunchtime.
Maybe William was right, but then, he was not the owner of the joint and talking to the management would have been more useful, especially since local staff rarely pass on customers' complaints to the powers that be for fear of being dismissed for being messengers of doom.
The gerant then proceeded to usher us to a vacant table elsewhere but William decided to sit down at a nearby table of his choice, which, we were told, had been reserved earlier in the day. Again, since "No" rarely features in William's dictionary, he plunged into that reserved seat, all 250 pounds of him, and demanded to see the menu card.
The staff, having been forced into battle stations too, delayed the issuance of the menu for as long as humanly possible and then tried to be busy in a far away part of the restaurant, which made it impossible for us to order.
Further retaliations by the staff included "mistakes" in the sequencing - we asked for soup first and coffee last, however, the coffee was served first, and cold by the time we were ready to quaff, and despite requesting the soup to be served first and urgently, it finally arrived when our main course was already on the way out.
I hope that William and types like William will try a little harder to be civilized guests. Maybe the Chinese staff were not totally blameless. Instead of resorting to "deliberate mistakes," they might as well simply explained the situation to my friend.
(The author is a freelancer in Shanghai. The views expressed are his own.)
My mobile phone rang and William prattled that he was in need of food and that shared delights are double delights and that I had been especially selected to function as the multiplying factor in William's delights.
I am always grateful, when accepting invitations to obscure and hard-to-find eateries, to be told of the nearest Metro station AND the most convenient exit number to minimize suffering a runaround or worse: getting lost.
To make long story short: I did get to the hostelry, eventually, and finally walked into William's beaming smile, his voice thundering: "Good to see ya, let's go and eat."
William prefers window seats in his quest to see and to be seen. Much to his dismay, though, a full row of window seats was out of commission, confirmed by way of a forbidding, yet highly polished brass sign exclaiming: "No entry."
Now is William not the type who takes "No" for an answer and he proceeded to walk inside the prohibited area, which got all the staff present to nervously proclaim that there would be no service in that section, so sorry, and "may we show you gentlepersons to your seat, please."
My friend elevated himself into his war-mode and read the restaurant staff the riot act in a loud voice, leaving no doubt as to what stupid clowns they were for blocking off prime window seats at prime lunchtime.
Maybe William was right, but then, he was not the owner of the joint and talking to the management would have been more useful, especially since local staff rarely pass on customers' complaints to the powers that be for fear of being dismissed for being messengers of doom.
The gerant then proceeded to usher us to a vacant table elsewhere but William decided to sit down at a nearby table of his choice, which, we were told, had been reserved earlier in the day. Again, since "No" rarely features in William's dictionary, he plunged into that reserved seat, all 250 pounds of him, and demanded to see the menu card.
The staff, having been forced into battle stations too, delayed the issuance of the menu for as long as humanly possible and then tried to be busy in a far away part of the restaurant, which made it impossible for us to order.
Further retaliations by the staff included "mistakes" in the sequencing - we asked for soup first and coffee last, however, the coffee was served first, and cold by the time we were ready to quaff, and despite requesting the soup to be served first and urgently, it finally arrived when our main course was already on the way out.
I hope that William and types like William will try a little harder to be civilized guests. Maybe the Chinese staff were not totally blameless. Instead of resorting to "deliberate mistakes," they might as well simply explained the situation to my friend.
(The author is a freelancer in Shanghai. The views expressed are his own.)
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