Give and it will be given to you

October 17, 2007

"Give and it will be given to you." (Luke 6:38)


Today these words took on new meaning for us. Tomas and I visited a tiny noodle restaurant that we often frequent. As we sat down to wait for our food(shivering, since all of the doors were, of course, wide open), a boisterous group of young Chinese men entered the restaurant. They promptly began to smoke their cigarettes, laugh and joke with each other, and stare at us.

After we had gotten our dishes and had begun to eat, an elderly man with a cane came to the restaurant door. He was begging, (not that common in Chengxian) and we were surprised to see the restaurant's waiter give the man a small bill. When he came to the second door, near us, I motioned to the waiter and I whispered if he would ask the man if he would like a bowl of noodles, and that we would pay for it. He consented, and so the man came and sat down to wait for his food. (A common lunch, a bowl of noodles in a soup, costs about 40 cents here).

Eventually the boisterous group of Chinese men paid and left, and when we were finished, Tomas went to the front desk to pay for us and the elderly gentleman. That was when the waiter told us that it was already paid. The group of boisterous men had paid for the 3 of us as well!

So...here we were, trying to do a good deed for someone, and in the end, we ended up getting free lunches!

The reason this happened is because there is often a very awkward custom in China that people in restaurants pay for each other. It has happened before that students have been eating at the same restaurant as us (maybe on different sides of the room even) but as they left, they paid for our meal as well! So usually now we try to avoid this by paying as quickly as possible. But... today this happened again.

Also, in today's situation, I think that when the Chinese men observed that we, foreigners, would offer a fellow Chinese person a meal, they probably felt that they, as Chinese, should have done it themselves. In China, taking care of each other is seen as very important, since it usually falls to family to care for itself, not society to take care of people.

Give and you shall be given... but we never expected it to happen within 10 minutes!!!

Just thought we'd share this awkward, and yet culturally interesting, little episode with you!

Take care!
Rachel & Tomas