One of the things that Marisha wanted to do while she was in China was get her hair dyed. Since she’s had the kids she has been cutting her hair herself and I made it my mission that she get some pampering during her visit here. I took her to the same salon that I went to back in December that I’ve been to before – great cuts, attentive service and low prices. Since I had gotten my hair cut two weeks earlier, I just sat in one of the chairs and translated for Marisha (and Arnel) as necessary.
My Chinese has been improving steadily, but by no means am I fluent. Conversations with people who don’t speak English, like my cleaning lady or the salon boys, are punctuated with, “Ting, bu dong” – “I hear you, but I don’t understand.” Hence, the comment I made at the beginning – it was a slow afternoon at the salon and one of the stylists made it his job to amuse me. It started with, “Do you have a boyfriend?” and progressed to “It would be very convenient if you were my girlfriend” to “Will you kiss me?” It was all in good fun and I would have been prepared to leave it at that, but before we left I had to go to the bathroom.
My new friend (see the picture above) followed me, ostensibly to make sure that I made it down the long hallway and around to the toilet. He then waited for me and when I was done attempted to pin me against the wall and take the kiss which I had refused in the salon. I was rather taken aback and managed to do a slight sidestep, give him a hug and speedily exit.
The post script to this story was one that evening last week when walking home from work I was waiting to cross the street and a guy on a motorbike pulled up right in front of me, pointed directly at me and then the back seat of his bike and said (in Chinese) – “You, sit right here!” Definitely unexpected.
Now that I have been proved wrong, I just have to find the attractive Chinese men who are interested in tall Western women.
Question – Ladies, where have you received your strangest pick-up lines? This has to be one of my strangest although I did get a marriage proposal from a random guy on North Avenue beach a couple of years ago. Gents – what’s your strangest pick-up line that you’ve actually used?
3 comments:
Ha ha ha! Ah, Greta. You're such a heartbreaker. :-) Thanks for sharing that story. It definitely gave me a good laugh. I think the strangest "pick up" lines (if you can call them that; it was more like harassment) that have been used on me with men usually involve the man exposing himself to me and asking me a ridiculous question such as if I want to touch it. Seriously? Does that really work out for you? Ever? Then of course there was a man in Spain who just exposed himself and ran at a group of us. Were you there for that? I know Krista was. Then there was a man on the bus in Chicago who I was just chatting with and trying to be friendly since he was obviously drunk. After about 2 minutes of conversation he asked if I was married. I said no. His very next question was if I would like to go home and make babies with him. Make babies? Seriously? Where do people come up with this stuff? I'm trying to be fair and come up with some lines that women have used on me, but honestly, none have been strange enough to really stick out in my head like that. Women are obviously just much more together. :-) Take care, Greta! And please, try not to leave a trail of broken hearts behind you when you come home, ok? ;-)
I used to take the Greyhound a lot to visit Jeremy (my husband now) when he went to school in Iowa and I was in Kalamazoo, MI. On one memorable trip, I had my big art portfolio with me to work on some assignments. On the ride out of Chicago, a young man was flirting with me. I was deftly acting the cold, uninterested fish but he kept talking and smiling.
He asked, at one point, "so, are you an artist?"
I told him no, that I was just taking art classes and didn't really consider myself "an artist."
I remember he got quiet for a while after this, then turned and faced me again and said, "how about sometime, I can be the artist and you can be the model?"
...I'm sure he thought that was so smooth. I told him, no thanks and that my boyfriend probably wouldn't think it was such a great idea.
And, one of my favorite shoot-downs to a terrible pick-up line I got online one day:
Q: So, are you pretty/hot/etc?
A: Well, my daddy says I'm the prettiest girl in the whole wide world.
Good luck out there in Shanghai, Greta!
That was a great story...hope you have more of those before you leave!!!
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