Who Will Give Way?

A Sunday afternoon party at a friend’s home. Their newborn had reached the 100-day mark and we mingled there with some old friend’s and plenty of strangers.   A sky lit courtyard on a sunny afternoon it was a lovely setting and I did my best to resist the impulse to simply talk to people I knew.  Most of the foreigners have good Chinese and most of the Chinese have good English, so each new chat across those lines is a two-step to start.  Who will give way?

I introduce my wife to an American gent I’ve just met.  He switches and speaks to her in Chinese.  It’s jarring to my ear.  But I don’t know that I would have done anything differently were he to have introduced me to his wife, were she to have been Chinese, unless she commenced with decidedly “hey man, what’s up?” English.   I meet someone who’s spent the last ten years in Finland. We stick to English.  I keep my Chinese in reserve.  She meets my wife, and soon we’re speaking Chinese.  Then I can assert myself.  Which is fine for a moment, until her head turns to avoid the sun light and I can no longer follow her mouth and I begin to loose the thread of what their saying, merely adding “you don’t say?”  “I know it’s like that” at random pauses in the conversation so that I keep a toehold in things. 

Her husband is from Finland.  “I love Finland.” I tell him.  He is happy to hear this.  No one can be dry and laconic quite like the Finns.  We talk about the fall of Nokia, as we must.  The Russian embargo has been painful as well, he offers.  The question of immigration comes up and he carefully and convincingly explains why it is so hard in such a loosely populated country to welcome in fifty thousand refugees. “We Finnish people, we need our space.”  I consider the Finn’s I’ve known and nod in affirmation.

A gent I’ve met from Boston hips me to a new Italian restaurant located near our home.  “Yeah, it’s right next to Starbucks.”  It is precisely the same place where there had always been an Italian restaurant of no particular distinction.  “No.  It’s new.  It’s good.”  A few hours later we’re sitting there ordering ravioli.  He was right.  The food is delicious and the place is packed.  There are two Italian owners who are working hard to make every table happy.   “This is my fifth month here.  There were times this winter when I really wondered, ‘why am I here?’  But no, it’s been good.  Business is good.” And he gestures to the full house.  I consider the Tuscan sun and the Italian economy and understand.