Concentrate on the Shaved Beets

At the other table, sat three women.  Within seconds it was clear they were from China.  We had chosen this place on a friend’s recommendation.  I’d dutifully made a reservation, a long distance call, I’d been warned I’d need to, but there weren’t many people inside for lunch.  Our waiter, Walter, was very attentive.  He had many things to share; about food, about wine and about his clientele.

My wife wanted a Bellini.  I had thought this was named after Vincenzo Bellini the early nineteenth century composer who died at the tender age of thirty-three.  And though he worked in Venice and had many works performed here he wasn’t Venetian.  He was Sicilian.  Rather, the painter Giovanni Bellini who was Venetian had painted a saint’s cloak in a similar hue of pink to the peach and Prosecco based aperitif is the b-boy whom the cocktail's named for.  And my wife caught Walter saying “Franciacorta” and reminded me that this was precisely the dry sparkling wine our gondola driver had raved about.  Walter insisted: “Prosecco” is like-a bronze-a. Franciacorta is like-a platinum”, he said, with his arm stretched nearly to the ceiling.  Right.  Bring us a cold glass then. 

As prophesied, our seafood risotto was outstanding.  At the other end of the room, Walter was making conversation with the ladies from China, who didn’t seem to relish chatting in English.  Walter however persisted.  Soon, it was clear that these gals hailed from Xiamen, even though Walter couldn’t place where that was.  I tried to concentrate on the shaved beets that blanked my meal and to resist the temptation to offer up unsolicited witticisms to their fledgling conversation.

Soon, another woman had joined our room.  She spoke, to my ears, quite confident Italian.  However Walter was keen to practice his Japanese once he had discerned where this lady was from.  She would speak Italian and he would reply in English and then say "Arigato!".  It all seemed rather familiar.  Watching our waiter I was struck by his uncanny resemblance to a wonderful student of mine from a few years back, who was from St. Petersburg.  I kept expecting Walter to code-switch into a flat Russian drawl. His pressed nose and broad face, to my eyes looked unmistakably Slavic.  But Walter was unerring in his Italian accented English. 

I returned from the bathroom to hear him sharing ideas about China with my wife. “Most a-people who come to the restaurant who are Chinese are actually from Taiwan.  90% or more are from Taiwan.  They dress nice they have good manners.  The other people who come are from-a Hong Kong or Shanghai.  And they are nice, cultured people too.  But when the people from the north come, like-a-Peking-a, oh, that is very different.  They are rude and they are loud and they go outside for cigarettes.  I find them very hard to be around.”

It occurred to me that my wife had yet to share the fact that we call Peking home.  Still, I later unpacked it all with my wife, we agreed that his ability to discern broad stereotypes within the breadth of Chinese civilization hinted at progress and volume and a slowly rising sense of nuance facing east.   

Sunday, 03/19/17