China 3, Catalina 0

A few days ago I was in my dorm, hungry but unwilling to dish out the money on a dinner from one of the fancy Lower East Side restaurants in my neighborhood. I decided to take a walk to Chinatown and dragged my friend Elisabeth who told me of a deal at a place on Elridge Street: 5 dumplings for a dollar. Its too good to pass up so we walk there and grab some take out menus on the way. Looking at the menu I just picked up, I feel proud to have found a better deal than Elisabeth. “Look, this place has 5 dumplings AND bok choy for $1.50.” I don’t know exactly what bok choy is but it sounds familiar and I imagine a large platter overflowing with noodles and 5 dumplings resting on top. Then she crushes my happiness, “Do you even know what that is? You’re paying 50 cents extra for CABBAGE.”
I’m feeling disillusioned but we continue our walk through Chinatown and I see in the window of a store, a large bag of “#1 Extra Fancy Kokuho Rice.” I find this humorous because what can possibly make rice fancy or unfancy? Isn’t one grain of rice just as fancy as any other grain? I chuckle at this and start to take out my camera to take a picture of it, but Elisabeth soon warns me that every passing Chinese person is giving me dirty looks. Did I offend their culture by making fun of fancy rice? I decide not to take the picture and walk (run) away as subtly as possible.
We make it to the dumpling place and I enjoy my dollar dumplings accompanied by a dollar can of Arizona green tea. I have to head uptown so I get on the train, intending to transfer to the E at West 4th. It’s the weekend and I remember reading something about service changes on the E line, I can’t remember what I read but maybe i’m mistaken. I get to West 4th and sure enough there are posters with the letter E, but as I approach one to read it I notice that they’re only in Chinese. “All of them are ONLY in Chinese. What’s going on? Do they only want Chinese people to know where to go?” Luckily, I only waited on the platform for a minute before the E came and safely brought me to my destination.
China, you certainly confused me today.