Incident at the Poo Poo Hot Pot

Chinese women don’t like me. Well, wait a minute, that’s not completely true: women of Chinese ancestry raised in the U.S. have no opinion of me, but female Chinese immigrants definitely don’t care very much for me. I often feel it in their cold stares or the way they knock past me while boarding buses or escalators. When I place orders at Chinese restaurants, they act impatient and rush me. It may be because I’m too tall or too white or both; I have an aura about me that antagonizes them. Instead of the Goofy Nice Guy persona most people pick up on, I think what they see is Yankee Imperialist Oppressor. I’ve just got a bad look to them.

Several years ago, I was working on a catalog job (I’m a graphic designer). My client contact was a pretty, young Chinese woman named Ling. Whenever we met to discuss the job, she was as cold as liquid nitrogen and acted as if sharing the same atmosphere with me was poisonous to her. Her remarks were punctuated by barely concealed contempt and, despite how hard I worked, nothing I did was right and the smallest slip was proof of my complete incompetence. Now, keeping in mind that I’m pretty good at what I do and most clients are delighted with me, the only thing I could put it down to was that, like all other native Chinese women, she hated me because of this look I seem to have. What else could it be? I worked hard, tried to be polite and kept my stupid questions to a minimum. I gave it my best, I really did. But in the end, rather than have me take the job to completion, she abruptly pulled it from me and had someone finish it internally.

That’s State’s Exhibit A. We now move to Exhibit B. About ten years ago, I was out with a group of people to see a show at the MIT auditorium in Cambridge, MA. For some reason which I’ve forgotten, we parked the car quite a distance away. As we strolled down Massachusetts Ave. on our way back to it after the show, a member of our group recommended we stop off at a small Chinese restaurant she knew of called the Poo Poo Hot Pot. The vote was unanimous, so we went. The only hitch I saw was no one claimed to be particularly hungry. Most people in the group declared they would only order an appetizer, like soup. I remarked that it seemed kind of unusual to not order full-fledged meals at a Chinese restaurant and actually felt a premonition of trouble. But no one else felt it was an issue, so on we went.

It was a relief to see the restaurant more than half empty, as I mainly feared a large party of light eaters taking space away from more profitable clientele might lead to some friction. We were seated, menus were distributed, and I decided I would order a full meal just for appearance’s sake. When the waitress arrived, she did indeed seem taken aback by orders for only soup or chicken fingers. I think one of us might have requested only water. When we finished ordering, she said rather brusquely, “Is that it? That’s all you want?” Someone said yes, and then she snatched up the menus in a fit of pique and stormed away.

This was bad, I thought. What really made me nervous was how my wife, Myrna, would react to a hostile waitress. My wife is Puerto Rican, and — forgive me if I’m stereotyping — like a lot of Latinas the passions inflame in her as quickly as a match to rocket fuel. After a minute, I asked, “Should we leave? That waitress doesn’t seem too happy with us.” Myrna instantly agreed.

I caught the waitress as she walked by and told her to cancel the orders. Anything already being cooked special for us, finish it and we’ll take it to go. The waitress gave me a blank look, then strode directly over to the manager and said a few choice words in Cantonese while gesticulating toward us. The manager, a fairly attractive Chinese woman perhaps no more than 30, came over and asked in her most civil tone what it was we wanted? I replied with some asperity, “Your waitress doesn’t seem to like us very much and we want to leave. I told her, any special orders being prepared for us, go ahead and finish them. We’ll pay for them, only we want them to go. We don’t feel comfortable eating here.”

The manager’s appearance completely changed. Her face instantly took on the very shape of outrage. “What is the matter? What did she do?” she demanded.

“I think she thinks we ordered too little. That’s fine. Just wrap it up and we’ll eat it elsewhere.”

“So you’re leaving?”

“Yes, we’re leaving.”

That was all she needed to hear. She turned on her heel, walked the five or so steps over to the telephone, punched in three numbers and informed a police dispatcher that she, the manager of the Poo Poo Hot Pot on Mass Ave. in Cambridge, had a party of customers attempting to leave the premises without paying their bill.

This sent my wife into a rage and she let forth a stream of very uncomplimentary words to the manager. The manager retorted: “Lady, calm down! You are crazy! I think I smell alcohol on your breath!” and then made a fanning motion as if the fumes were overcoming her. Here I interceded and told this woman to watch what she said and announced our intention of seating ourselves again to wait for the arrival of the police. I told her I explained our intentions to her very clearly, she completely misconstrued them, was still not willing to listen, and now I would simply have to be satisfied with explaining our position to the police.

So we waited. And we waited. I began to form the suspicion that no real call to the police took place. Meanwhile, members of the kitchen staff popped into the dining room from time to time to see the unruly customers who were making such a fuss. Some of the diners gave me black looks. One customer, in to pick up her take-out order and obviously a regular, was told by the manager a bizarre version of what took place. By this time you could see the sole wish of the manager was for us to leave. This woman turned to us and said, “You know what? You people are assholes! She’s a nice person! You should leave her alone!”

The customer left, another five minute passed, and then the manager, who was really becoming quite distraught, finally pleaded to us, “Please! Just go! Go!”

“No,” I said, “you accused us of trying to leave without paying the bill. I explained to you three times what our intentions were, but despite that, you called called the police. That was a serious step you took. We won’t leave until we tell the police our side.”

Then she said, “I know what you think when you look at me! All you see is cheap labor! You get your fancy degrees and high-paying jobs and think you own everyone! But you don’t! You don’t own me!”

And then it became obvious: I embodied everything she hated about this country, the stories she heard and the prejudices she encountered. I was Mr. White Self-Satisfied Smug Capitalist Shithead — or whatever that translates to in Cantonese.

I had kept everyone in my party from saying anything which might escalate the tension by giving a little speech about us showing some class in this situation. Despite that, every now and again Myrna said something ostensibly meant for our group, but loud enough for the people passing by on the sidewalk to hear. “Now, now Myrna…” I’d caution. Another five minutes went by. Finally, I went up to the manager and said, “Look, we can’t wait any longer. But this doesn’t mean I’m admitting you’re right.”

A change came over her. She suddenly appeared vulnerable; the hatred had all drained away. She replied, “The waitress is my sister. She’s only been in this country for a little while and she doesn’t understand English very well. Maybe that was the trouble.”

“Just let me ask you this: do you still believe we’re trying to cheat you?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Believe it or not, in the end we came to maybe one-sixteenth of an inch away from hugging each other. We both admitted we could have handled ourselves better. She wished we’d come back again some other time; we had a completely wrong idea about her and her restaurant. I expressed a desire to do so. At one point, I inexplicably gave her sister a tip for absolutely nothing (we never got any food, as it turned out). It became a lovefest. Weird.

Of course, we never did go back.