Odd Man In

Nersey and Jia recently found a good Xinjiang restaurant within walking distance of our apartments, and we've been a couple of times just for the random lamb kebab or tudou pian (grilled potato slices). Late Monday night, hungry from having had nothing more than a bowl of oatmeal all day, I went in for an entire dinner, adding nan (flatbread), grilled sausages, qiezi (eggplant), some vegetable skewers, and a plate of fried noodles to my normal order. The food was great; I filled up to bursting for under twenty kuai, and this morning I didn't have any of the digestive problems that normally accompanies eating too much at a Chinese restaurant.

Xinjiang food has become my favorite in China, since it's the closest to Western food you can find while still eating Chinese (and cheap). Nan is more or less the same as pita bread; Xinjiang-style kebabs are similar to Greek- or Turkish-style foods--loaded with cumin and pepper; tudou pian are like potato chips, only better; even their fried noodles have a distinctly Mediterranean flavor to them (quite odd, since most of Xinjiang is basically desert). Perhaps more importantly, the Xinjiang restaurants are usually Muslim, therefore safer, and the food seems healthier, cooked with less oil and cooked more thoroughly as well.

The greater attraction of Xinjiang restaurants, though, is that 意想不到, I often feel an odd sense of identity with the workers. Because many Xinjiangren are both ethnic minorities and Muslim, they don't seem to fit in as well with Han Chinese. The ethnic majority (i.e., Han) customers tend to talk down to them and be even ruder than they usually are. (Keep in mind that shouting, "服务员"--“Waitress"--at the top of your voice, snapping your fingers, arguing loudly, etc., are all normal manners in most restaurants.)

Monday, I got to listen to a table of four young Chinese men--all equipped with bad haircuts, "Western" clothes, and big leather money bags--alternatively mock one of the waiters and me. Their comments on him mostly consisted of lines like, "You are stupid; we didn't order this" and "Little wonder--he's a Xinjiang person," such quips followed by loud laughter. The item they chose to mock me about was that I was practicing my hanzi while eating; they all were of the opinion that I must 看不懂 (kan bu dong--not understand) what I was writing. I didn't bother responding, because I've learned it just isn't worth the effort. There are stupid people, and there are stupid people.

During the night, I got sympathetic smiles and nods from the staff throughout the night, and the waiter receiving the most abuse from the Chinese talked to me for a bit, mostly to compliment my writing. Together we got to enjoy the spectacle of watching the brain trust at the next table attempt to decipher the "English" sign on the wall: most of their attention was focused on the top of the poster (which advertising an electronic Quran/camera/MP4 player), where the writing is in Arabic. They proudly concluded that the capitals USB meant 美国 (meiguo--America). Little wonder, then, I don't feel bad about feeling like an outcast sometimes in China, or about identifying more with the minority than with the majority.