Friday, June 6, 2008

Would You Like A Little AIDS With Your Goat Hot Pot?


(PICTURE: The literature my waiter handed me)

Two nights ago I'm sitting outside at my favorite goat hot-pot restaurant waiting for Ryan to show up. I had a couple minutes to spare so I took out midterm exams from my backpack which needed grading. I started to mark up the tests when a waiter came up to me and started to try and talk. He knew ZERO words in English and my twenty word vocab wasn't getting us too far. We said our names, shook hands, had a few chuckles at our lack of communication and then he wandered off.

I went back to grading my midterms when after about a minute the waiter returned holding a piece of paper. He handed me the paper with a huge grin and pointed at himself. I quickly glanced over the 8X10s and got the gist of what he was handing me. Basically it was a four page document printed off the internet about AIDS. He kept smiling at me and pointing at himself. I asked him, "Do you have Aids?" and he kept smiling and pointing. He gestured for me to keep the paper and meandered off, looking quite proud. I couldn't figure out if:
A. The waiter actually had AIDS
OR
B. He figured I was a teacher and wanted me to teach my students about AIDS
OR
C. Both

No real point to this story except that it was just another strange incident. And yes, I have a favorite goat hot-pot place.