Behind the scenes at Panda Garden

I realized that I have never talked about the people I work with everyday at Panda Garden!

"My God!" is the new popular saying here. It started with Kinkie, our good friend and waitress. She uses the saying once in every two phrases. It is said with an "uh" in the end, like- "My God-uh!" My mother who chats with her a lot then picked it up. And now I, thinking it very hilarious, have picked up my version of the saying. It is "Ohhhh, MY god!" in a valley girl voice. I repeated it to end yesterday in the kitchen. It caught on to the main chef who happens to be very eager to learn English. His name means Long Life in English. Long Life reaches his arms out and faces the ceiling with his knees bent screaming fervently, "OH MY GOD!!" He says it is more appropriate that way because he is addressing the American God.

I was trying to create a Valley Girl persona out of Long Life, but I have decided that he is more funny with his own personal empathic twist. He jerks a lot convulsively. He is a funny guy, and I like to play tricks on him. He is smart too, and plays tricks back. He is in his late fourties. I throw peanuts at him when he plays tricks on me. Peanuts are the cheapest nuts available at the workers table I work at. Almonds and cashews are too expensive to throw about recklessly and sesame seeds are worthless for throwing. My brother and I also enjoy tormenting him by making him cook stuff for us. The harder the dish is to make the better for us! Tofu is hard to work with. Pan-fried long noodles take time too. The rice patties that come with sizzling rice soup are also a nuisance to make. We will order many dishes of all sorts (can always count on my gluttonous brother to gulf it all up) and then we will exclaim stuff like, "Not enough!!" or "More spicy!" or
"Too salty!" just to enfuriate him. The show he makes is worth movie ticket prices.

The other worker is as quiet as can be. He is 18, and I don't know his name. I just as address him as "chef" in Chinese because it is much more of an honor than calling him "Prep-guy" which is what he is. Everyone else calls him "Little brother" because they are all his elder. He is often lost in thought while working and Long Life likes to yell at him when he is mid-way through an order and forgets what he is doing or when he keeps looking at the order receipts to figure out what he is supposed to do. But actually, Long Life is the only person who can get him to converse. It is rare for anyone else to get him to talk, let alone converse. When he is actually not too lost in thought to hear someone address him, he will nod or shake his head almost unnoticeably whenever it is a Yes/No question. He is very crude-his manners and behavior- but generally a good guy at heart.

Kinkie has been working with us since this summer when she was hired cause I was away at summer school and Mom was visiting relatives. She is a very smart worker and fun to talk with. SHe and Mom are getting along very well, and it is so good for Mom to actually have a friend she can converse with on many levels. You know she can only talk about so much with English-speaking friends which all happen to be the regular customers. Kinkie is like your stereotypica female. She loves gossip and speaks emphatically-thus the "My God-uhs!" She sides with my mom on almost everything and loves to talk about her little daughter who is several months old and lives in China, and what a naughty, vain little girl she is. But she says all this with pride. One of her favorite sayings is "Girls have to dress up so they can be pretty." or "There are no such thing as ugly girls-only lazy girls." I kind of have to agree with her. The ugliest girls can be made rather pretty through good make-up and dress up. Kinkie loves to cluck cluck at me with Mom about what a tom-boy I am. My hair is always knotty and tangled cause I am too lazy to comb it. My clothes don't match half the time. I laugh too loud and too much and sing outloud like a crazy girl a lot. I like to act crazy and loud and wild, which are boyish qualities to them. It was really funny one day when I walked to the restaurant with my green flip flops with gray socks and jean capris in like zero degrees weather. 1. I was crazy enough to wear capris and flip flops in winter. 2. My clothes didn't match and my feet looked like a fright with the socks and flip flops. Kinkie said it looked Japanese except the colors didn't match.

Well these are the people I work with at the restaurant!