| | Foreword
If you communicate with me relatively often, you've
probably heard about me bitch about how boring weekends can be in
downtown Toronto. Today was definitely an exception. One worthy of
typing up (on Xanga AND Facebook).
Also, simply because it's a
wild coincidence and/or reasons beyond my perception that I had such a
day on your birthday (or rather the day before, but it's past 12 a.m.
now), this post is for you:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CASEY!
Table of Contents
- The Sketchy Downtown "茶餐廳"
- The Hard-selling Leather Salesman
- Shoplifting 101: The "Don't"s
- Glossary For People Who Suck At Chinese
The Sketchy Downtown "茶餐廳"
Waking
up drunk is usually not the best experience ever. Especially on a
weekend when you're like me and rely on school cafeteria food. It's
also weird when you realize your bed is so comfortable that you get
such deep sleep, that you actually don't feel like lingering on the bed
when you wake up. Turning on my computer, I checked the usual websites
and chatted with various people on MSN before figuring that I should
get some food to replenish the energy that was sapped by last night's
drinking.
After some frustrated brainstorming, I decided to go
to the Pizza Pizza down the street. When I got there, they didn't have
pepperoni pizza, and said it would take about 15-20 minutes for the
next one. I didn't want to wait that long for my food, so I took off.
Call me a picky eater, but that's pretty much the only pizza I eat
nowadays. Going around the next corner, I stopped at an all-day
breakfast restaurant. I had seen this place before, and remembered that
it had the typical Cantonese grammatical errors in the English menus
and even Chinese characters saying "早餐供應". The food was
cheap compared to most other restaurants in the area, too. Thus,
without even glancing through the windows, I pulled the door open and
walked in expecting to see fellow Asians and other people looking for a
cheap meal.
Flabbergasted would be a tremendous understatement
to how I felt when I saw nothing but silver-haired, senile, elderly men
sitting with beers in their hands. I looked at my watch. It read 2:00
p.m.. I decided to try and stop this imagery from affecting my
impression of the place, and headed towards the counter. The owner,
obviously Cantonese, asked me for what I wanted. After quite a bit of
thinking, I settled with the all-day breakfast special three-cheese
omelette, served with a drink of choice, buttered toast, and home fries
for just $5.50. Inadvertently I glanced at the beer menu. $3.00 a
bottle. I took a seat and waited patiently for my meal. It took a mere
two minutes for it to be prepared by the owner's wife, who was mainland
Chinese. When he put my food in front of me, I said "唔該", but either he didn't hear it, or he really didn't expect to hear Cantonese from anyone who would go to his restaurant.
Although
the omlette was delicious, I truly doubt there were any more than one
type of cheese in it: cheddar. Upon finishing my meal, I sat and
considered if I should eat here again. The taste of the food struck an
uncanny resemblance to home-cooked meals, but the fact that the food
was served to me on a Styrofoam plate made me question the quality of
the food. Maybe picking the omlette was a bad idea; you can never tell
if they put anything less than normal in an omlette. That and being the
only person in the room under the age of 60 and subject to intense
scrutiny from senile old men who drink at 2 o'clock made me think
seriously about whether I would return.
The Hard-selling Leather Salesman
After leaving the "茶餐廳"
I decided to walk around for a bit, since there was nothing to do on
Saturdays. I had become aware that my Osiris skate shoes that have been
with me for at least 3 years now should probably be replaced; the
padding behind the heel has been completely weathered down, to the
point where the hard plastic supporting the back of the shoe has been
scraping against my Achilles tendon. I decided to go look around for
shoes. Trying on various types of shoes, I realized that once you've
worn skate shoes, other types of shoes just don't seem to cut it in
terms of comfort and versatility.
The first store I stopped at
and tried something on was Athlete's World. The guy measured my feet
and gave me a shoe of the same size. It just wouldn't fit. We kept
trying different sizes until it was up to one and a half sizes over the
size of my feet. Eventually I put one pair on hold and left to see if I
could find a better price and a better fit.
Stopping at an
off-to-the-side sports store, I found a shoe that was the same size as
my foot, and actually fit. I was very close to buying it, but the one
on display was one shoe of the only pair they had in that size. And
because the shoe on display had been tried on by everybody, the shoe
they left in storage seemed a lot smaller and less flexible compared to
the one I tried on.
Frustrated and still bored, I headed away
from the relatively frequented mall area in search for more low-priced
footwear at grungier stores. Eventually, I stumbled into a store that
sold leather garments. Maybe I should get a pair of leather shoes!
As
I walked in, one man was standing in my path, and asked me if it was my
first time in the store. I said yes, and he gave me a tour of all the
different types of leather jackets in the store. Then, he picked out a
bunch of jackets that he thought would look good on me. It wasn't until
the third jacket that it occurred to me that I should check to see how
much these jackets are. Flicking the next jacket around to look for a
price tag and trying not to let the guy notice, the first number I saw
was $650. I felt my heart jump up and sucker punch me in the brain. You
could buy a person for that much in some countries. I have to
give it to this guy, though; he knows what he's doing and actually had
me seriously thinking about buying one of those jackets for $350, and
thinking that I could, and should buy it. I think the moment I snapped
out of it was when he mentioned that the one I was wearing was probably
the only one that fit me in order for me to put a 1/4 down payment of
$75 for them to put the jacket on hold. Ultimately, I refused. Even if
I did have the money, I'd save it for something else.
This was a
really memorable experience. Walking out of the store was like crossing
between worlds; the world of people that can afford a $300 jacket, and
the world of people that can't. But the fact that there are people in
this world that can convince someone to think they could, and should
buy something that is probably worth more than the average person's
monthly salary, scares the shit out of me.
Shoplifting 101: The "Don't"s
After
that near-bankruptcy experience, I decided to save shoe shopping for
another time and headed over to my local martial arts supplies store,
CKT Sports. I like to go there just to hang around and look at stuff.
Sometimes I look at stuff I might actually need or may need eventually,
but usually I can never think of anything to look at very quickly, so I
just look at random things and anything that looks cool. The dude that
runs the store is perfectly cool with this. Presumably it's because
that's what most people that go to the store do anyway. I believe I
stayed there for a good couple hours just looking at random things and
talking with the owner when he wasn't busy with customers. During this
time, about 3 people thought I worked there. Must be because I'm Asian.
Eventually
the guy running the shop had to leave and set up a booth at some kendo
competition and the guy I think they recently hired took over. At first
I thought it would be pretty awkward so I was going to leave soon after
he came in, but as I looked around for anything else I might want to
check out before I left, a black dude with dreadlocks, reflective
sunglasses and a big red winter jacket came in and started looking at
shoes. I looked at my watch. 5:30 p.m.. It was nearly pitch-black
outside. During my couple of hours there I had learned to judge quite
accurately whether it was a martial arts student or a teacher walking
through the door. This guy definitely didn't seem like either one.
However, it did seemed obvious to me that this guy was on something, so
I went to the side of the counter near the entrance to look at some
Everlast EverGel Wrist Wrap Gloves. The new guy went to answer some
questions at the other side of the room. I waited till he was done and
asked if I could try the wrap gloves on, and he pulled one of them out
for me to try. Then, his attention went to the guy in the red jacket.
"Dude, are you...what the fuck are you doing?" I was slightly surprised
when I heard him say this, so I turned to see what was going on. "Did
you just stick those shoes inside your jacket?"
The guy in red
turned around and said something unintelligible. I realized what was
happening when I saw the bulge in the stomach area of his jacket.
"Dude, just open up your shirt."
This
went on for a while, and the guy in red would retort with something to
the effect of "Why would you want me to open my shirt?"
And then,
one of the shoes fell out from inside his jacket. At this point, I
really didn't know how seriously to take this situation.
"Dude, just give me the other shoe and get out."
The guy in red leans towards the man behind the counter and asks him "Where can I get some condoms? I mean like, huge ones."
"Dude,
right across the road, man. I know it looks like a book store, but they
specialize in condoms. Just gimme the other shoe and go." The man in
red turns to look at the store across the road. The other shoe drops
from his jacket. "Well alright, now you can go." The man in red bends
over to pick up the shoes he dropped. "Dude, don't even bother with
those, I'll do it-
The guy turns as if to run, and I quickly get in
his way. He turns around as if he was just feinting the run away, pulls
the empty shoe box out of the shelf and puts the shoes back in. "Hey,
just let me do it, just go."
The man turns and starts to walk
towards the exit. As he passes me, he unleashes a flurry of light slaps
onto my shoulder. I almost kicked him in the knee before I realized he
was just fucking around and both the employee and I told him to chill
and get out.
As the man leaves the store, I turn to the employee. "Well, that was an experience."
-------------------------------------------------------
Oh, and in case someone was actually looking for a comprehensive list of "Don't"s:
1. Don't get high before you try and steal something.
2. Don't take shit right in front of the guy running the place.
3. Don't steal shit from a martial arts supply store. The little Asian kid WILL beat your ass to the best of his ability.
Glossary For People Who Suck At Chinese
"茶餐廳" - What we Asians call a lower-middle class fast food restaurant
"早餐供應" - Breakfast service
"唔該" - Thanks (in the context where someone has done/given you something you could have done/taken yourself) |
| | Posted 11/11/2007 3:31 AM - 22 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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