Fried Rice

Today was a monumental day for me. It's one of those days that will I will remember for years to come. After watching a soul stirring moving on the house church movement going on in areas around us, I decided to venture across the street to a little restaraunt I've eaten at with some students. The thing is, everything time I've eaten there, they've ordered for me. Tonight was different. The only person with me was every bit as white as me. Not exactly Cantonese experts Dan and I. That mattered not, I was determined to eat fried rice for dinner.
A point of clarification. Fried rice here is 100% more exciting and flavorful than anything I'd had in the states. It might just be one of my new Hong Kong favourites. It includes rice and egg, some beef, duck, shrimp, and ham, and even veggies. It's a total meal all in one bowl. How much better could food be?
I've said all that to say this. It was time for me to order by myself. I know roughly 10 words of Cantonese but putting them together with some deft sign language got me 2 orders of Fried Rice to go. To quote my friend Lem, I was stoked!
In all fairness, this isn't a really big deal for normal people. For me, this small little victory gave me hope. I love serving the English speaking community of Hong Kong but am anxious to be able to communicate with the Canto speakers as well. They have so much to teach and share, if only we could get past that tonal language thing.
The journey toward Cantonese survival will be a long one I'm sure. I'm also sure that it will be filled with many failures and awful mispronunciations, (I can call mom a horse in mandarin anytime I want!), so this little glimmer of hope really brightened my day and filled my tummy. It's been a good day.