All that for only one cup of coffee?

I've been rather lazy lately about posting updates on goings on here on this side of the world...many apologies; the creative juices have just not been flowing.

Last Monday night, when we were in the middle of our cold front....the lows were in the upper 50s and highs near 70...I was absolutely freezing and decided I desperately needed to have a cup of coffee. Coffee contains the perfect percentage blend of warmth and caffeine so that I can finish my scholarship essays for law school, you know, to keep the blood flowing in my caffeine system.

Quick aside: you are probably laughing when I say it's cold in Shenzhen knowing full well that i reside just north of the equator, but when you live in an apt. that doesn't have a heater and is covered by stone floors...you'd be surprised at just how chilly it can feel. When the outside temp is 58, my apt. temp is probably no warmer than 60. Thus, I donned sweatpants, a fleece, some snazzy patterned socks with pigs or flamingos and slept under three blankets. Now i've got a huge incentive to finish the hat that I've been knitting; it'd be a great addition to my I'm freezing cold clothes, muhaha. Fortunately for me, it's warmer this week before it turns cold again.

Anyway, back to my coffee. I had been doing the China life (ie street food, noodles, steamed bread, chinese tea) pretty seriously for the past few weeks and so I decided I'd hop a bus downtown to starbucks and not only drink my overpriced yet amazing cup of coffee at said bastion of all things America, but also use their free wireless to research some scholarships as well as reading their free copy of the South China Morning Post. You see, I was going to get my moneys worth out of that $1.25US large cup of coffee (that's completely expensive here...that'd buy me 36 baozi (steamed buns) from my favourite street vendor (on a HUNGRY DAY I could eat 3)).

Once again returning to the point, after classes are over for the afternoon I walk into one of the swanky malls along Shennan road that houses a HagenDaaz (sugary liquid gold to Chinese) and a Starbucks. I order my coffee and oddly enough I have to wait for it longer than the man who smugly ordered a 'zhong bei' cappuccino in front of me (I'm damn convinced that 'midsize cup' is the only thing that man knew how to say in Chinese, besides 'fapiao' or 'receipt' so he could charge it to his corportate expense account).

Apparently not many people order coffee here, b/c the other time I came in to have a cup, they had to make it fresh too...odd. Everyone is too busy drinking Green Tea Frappuccinos or something. As i'm putting in milk and sugar (they import their 2% milk from the US b/c all they have here is whole milk) a man comes up behind me and uses the following astonishingly lame line on me: "excuse me, but I just really must tell you that when you smile, your face has the most breathtaking look." Good thing I wasn't actually drinking my coffee at the time, b/c I would wager a fair bet that I would have spat my coffee all over him, perhaps scarring him beyond recognition. I smiled said thank you for the comment and he continued on his way. However, no sooner I had replaced the lid on my freshly-brewed cup of coffee...but cheesy compliment man was back. He asked if I wished to have my drink with him and his friend who were sitting outside. (By the way, this was not in Chinese, he was a foreigner).

I had come to Starbucks to work, but I don't often talk to forgeiners here and I thought...15 minutes...sure why not. I sit down and learn that the man with the line was Lounis, from Tunisia, and his friend was from Canada. We chatted about life here for awhile and they told me they were both partners in startup joint-venture companies here. Lounis' friend Karim come up a bit later and he joined us. Karim is from Morocco. Thus, besides the fact that the whole scenario began with a horrible pickup line that I am sure Lounis uses on every woman here in Szn, the afternoon was rather pleasant. See, we ended up talking about world politics and it was most interesting. In America it is not often that you get viewpoints from three different enthnicities, rooted around three different religions. We shared stories of childhoods...I at least felt I fit in with Lounis and Karim b/c i grew up in Asia and Europe while Ian....he was a Canadian through and through. We talked about terrorism and Karim told me of a bombing near his home in Casablanca in 2001 that nearly killed his father while he was playing bingo. It was a suicide bomber out to target Muslims. None of these men were self-professed academians, none of them spouted out pompous theoretical matter in order to back up points that were weakly posed. Karim even drew a clever analogy between UAEFA cup footballing in Europe and terrorists and suicide bombers, truly priceless. An older man from England joined us later and put in his two cents on world politics. While I did not use the free wireless, nor did I read the free newspaper, my $1.25 spent on coffee that afternoon was more than recouped via enlightening conversation. Plus, each of the fellas proposed to me at least once during it all. Boys....