Big Trouble in Little Chinatown: Sydney Edition

So, yesterday was my wife's last day of freedom from her school system--or better known as her last day of Summer Break.  Since we work opposite schedules, we get hardly any time off together greater than a stretch of 24 hours unless (1) I use vacation time from work OR (2) my wife is on Summer Break.  Over the course of four years of marriage and five Summer Breaks, we would traditionally go out to lunch on the last day of school (which is a half day) and on the last day of Summer Break.

With Lily at almost 8 months old, she's given us a lot more liberty than before.  So, we drove all the way into Nashville to eat Korean.  The place primarily offers chopsticks with the option for guests to ask for silverware if they can't handle their chopsticks.  While we were waiting on our food, we separated our chopsticks and we proceeded to rub the eating ends of them against each other, getting the splinters out.  Heather stopped and asked, "Who taught you how to do that?"  (The obvious answer was her as she spent a year teaching in China.)

Our food arrived and I was eating like a chopsticking pro.  However, it hasn't always been this way.  Flashback to mid-June 2009, where my wife and I were in the fourth and final destination in Australia:  Sydney!  We stayed in the center of downtown, merely as a matter of convenience, at the Mercure Downtown Sydney for about $55/night.  Mercure happens to be an Accor Hotel.  Back when my wife asked me to make reservations and when I found out it was an Accor Hotel, I immediately thought of Motel 6 and was wondering what we were getting ourselves into.  Internationally, however, Accor is actually on par with the best of the mid-grade hotel chains.  But I digress...

The view from our room at the Mercure Sydney, about 6 floors up...

Oh, chopsticks!  We stayed about 2-3 blocks away from Sydney's Chinatown, which we would walk through each day and night.  One of the things that I observed was the varying degrees of aggressive selling by the immigrant merchants.  It was time for dinner, so all the restaurants had their signs, people, and fliers out in full force on the sidewalks--all of them touting themselves as the best and most economical!  We'd browse each flier or menu we passed until we picked the right one.




The Best Part, Part 1 of 2:


Around the same time that we were seated, a Chinese immigrant family of four (my wife could tell because they spoke Mandarin Chinese) were seated at the table next to us.  While waiting for our food, I decided to get out my chopsticks and practice because I was determined not to use the silverware, in spite of my poor chopsticking ability at the time.  So, I started practicing and apparently, I didn't realize it was comedy hour because the family of four was laughing hysterically at me!  Thankfully, my self-consciousness went away somewhere around or before my 30th birthday.  So, at 33, I didn't care and I continued to play along...  By the end of the meal, I was getting better with picking up food with the chopsticks.  The food and the service was so good that I left behind a tip, which wasn't customary in Australia...




The Best Part, Part 2 of 2:


After dinner we went out shopping for various souvenirs for the remaining people we hadn't found anything for.  We found a place offering T-shirts for relatively cheap prices for Australia.  So, we walk into the shop, about to make a purchase when some crazy lady shouting in bad, broken English from the street, "They charge too much!  They rip you off!  Come to our shop!"  (Seriously, this did happen!)


As a capitalist, myself, I chose not to allow her to interrupt the flow of capitalism and ignored her.  While I am a person that likes to get the best deal, when I say to the merchant, "I'd like these," and the price rings up what I thought it was, breaking off a transaction is like a man backing out on his word, in my opinion.  So, I bought the shirts.  Crazy lady was still in the street, this time, getting in my way, sounding very desperate this time around.  "You waste your money!  Come to our shop!  Give you good deal!"


By this point, I wasn't about to reward her outrageous behavior.  So, I politely said, "Ma'am, we are done shopping for the night.  We will stop by your shop another night."  In all honesty, I felt kind of bad by saying this because I had no intention (at the time) of doing so.  We proceeded to walk towards the Sydney harbor, getting this awesome shot of my wife in the process...

A day or two later, we're walking through Chinatown and in the same spot where we found Crazy Lady, we found someone from Crazy Lady's store that was a lot more calm and respectful.  We still had a couple of people left on our shopping list, so, "Sure!  We'll take a look in your store!"


Sane Lady says, "Okay, follow me.  It's not that far."


She was right, but it wasn't easy to get there.  We walked into what appeared to be an old apartment building off the main street in Chinatown that had been repurposed after some time, but it had no signage of any kind.  Then, we walked up the stairs to the second floor.  So, I'm thinking to myself at this point, "No sign.  Old building off the main drag.  Walking indoors to what appears to be a former apartment.  Is this really legit?"


Turned out it was.


Behind the door to an old apartment was a wide selection of souvenirs.  We found ourselves some T-shirts at 3 for AU$9 (or about US$10.80 at the time; since then, the exchange rate between the Australian and American dollars has returned to almost a 1-to-1 ratio).  So, the reason why they were cheap was because of the cheap rent on the place in a not-so-prime location.  There weren't many people there, which made me curious about the financial viability and sustainability of the shop.  I'm guessing that is all they could afford at the time.  Anyway, I hope they're doing much better now and that Crazy Lady has developed some soft skills in the process...


So, the moral of the story?  Not sure if there is one, but I do have a couple of pointers.  Have fun with your chopsticks--even if you're terrible with them like I was.  After all, you'll never know who's watching and they may find it entertaining.  Also, if a Chinese lady approaches you in Sydney's Chinatown politely asking you to check out her shop, go for it!  They may be in a poor foot traffic location, but their lower operating costs could definitely more than make up for your trouble!  However, if Crazy Lady approaches you, just look the other way and keep walking...