Paul, the Chinese-European
The boys found a restaurant last week that’s owned by one Paul Lai. Actually, the restaurant and adjoining bar/coffee shop are owned by his mother. His family is quite well off and he has lived in Europe and speaks perfect English and French. We went back to the restaurant for dinner tonight and Paul arrived right when we were settling back in our chairs, contemplating a second round of beers. Paul invited us to come sit with him in the coffee shop after our meal. We broke off, a couple of my fellow teachers wanting to start planning their trip to SH for over the October holiday, and the brothers from Portland, Alex the Canadian (now known as Klaver), Mya and myself walked over to the bar for a last beer and a chat with Paul. Matt and I spent the better part of an hour reminiscing over all of the hot spots in Seattle where UW students are a dime a dozen. We shared the locations of every home we’ve ever had in Seattle – and more than twice our paths should have crossed. Mya spoke some French with Paul and at the end of our round, Paul informed us of the electric Mahjong table up on the second floor of the bar. We went up to see this wonder of wonders because Mya loves to play Mahjong and I would love to learn HOW to play. The second floor of Paul’s family’s bar is a veritable pleasure palace. There are several rooms with giant plush couches, flat screen TVs, karaoke machines, and these fancy electric Mahjong tables.
The tables resemble tiny pool tables to me, with the green felt tops. They are perfectly square and in the center was a console. Paul powered up the table and pushed a button. The console in the center rose up and we dumped an entire set of Mahjong tiles into the now-exposed hole underneath. Then, Paul pressed another button on the console and it covered up the hole. He pressed a second button and four thin rectangular holes appeared in front of each player and from each hole appeared a set of neatly ordered Mahjong tiles. Yet another press of a button on the console and two tiny dice started spinning until they landed and exposed a six and a three. Mya and Paul guided Matt Bartoloni (from Portland – has a degree in Psychology from the UW) and I through a game. We’re all very excited to spend more time at Paul’s family’s bar because he has promised to teach us some Wuhanese so we can sound like the locals we plan to be in a month or so. Does anyone see a sequel to my Tsugaru Ben book on the way? What if I went around the world collecting dialects and making books out of them? Could I make a living doing something like that? (Don’t worry, that’s just a pipe dream…but a good one, if I do say so myself…)
And look, I’ve found a perfect way to end this entry because I’ve got to go and make a lesson plan for my 4th graders all about dreaming. As my example, I’ll tell them I often dream of making a book that translates Wuhanese into English and standard Mandarin.
