As I bid you all a happy weekend, I leave you with China Moment #237. We (as in expats) all have them: situations that remind us that we are indeed living in a (very) foreign country, one that is quite different from our own, and one that not too long ago had its borders closed to the outside world; frustrating episodes that make you want to pull your hair out or curse or go home and close your own border to the world outside.
I had lunch yesterday at a new, fancy-ish Vietnamese restaurant around the corner from us, choosing a table inside, seeking refuge from the heat and humidity and all that comes with it. Not 10 minutes after I sat down did I start feeling a sudden urge to scratch my legs. I looked down to find almost a dozen new mosquito bites. As I jumped out of my chair, the waiter ran up to the table with bug spray in his hand. Apparently, this has happened before; he said something about the table being next to the window... Not normal.
Now I suppose I've eaten at establishments that have had far worse than mosquitoes (here and back home), but something about the situation irked me. Maybe it was the fact that the waiter had pointed me to that table in the first place, knowing full well that it was infested with bloodsucking insects. Or maybe it was just the fact that it was China Moment #237.
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