Number One:

James just came back from his summer trip in China. When I asked him how long does it take from Qingdao to Beijing, he said ‘it only takes five hours’ by train’. ‘That’s quite a long way’, I replied.

Then we both realised he got used to the distance in Chinese scale, and I got used to the English one.

My train to London on Saturday is 3 hours, that’s a cross country journey!

Number Two:

We went to a restaurant called ‘No. 1′ in Newcastle China Town to have hot pot again for My friend’s birthday tonight. When I took him there a few months ago, he was like discovering a new continent and taking his friends there to try out. They love it too.

It’s funny when you walk into that restaurant. They have two sections – one for hot pot buffet and the other for the normal English Chinese buffet. Although there is no sign saying that hot pot is for Chinese customers and the other is for British, you can hardly see any British customers in the hot pot section. The same rule apply to the other one – few Chinese customers.

Tonight we sat on a table next to the counter. While a ladies was waiting for paying the bills, she looked at our table (the only one has both British and Chinese in hot pot section) and saw how we cooked our food. I didn’t hear the whole conversation between she and her friends, but I can’t help to catch one line, ‘I can’t be bother to do all these’. That remind me a scene in ‘Lost in Translation’, when they commenting a syabu-syabu (‘hot pot’ in Japanese) restaurant, the guys said ‘what kind of restaurant was that, you need to cook your own food’.

The world is just so different!

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