Dear China,
While sitting in a quaint local coffee shop called Habitat, a very soap opera-esque scene unfolded. (Honestly, I felt as though I'd stepped onto the set of "Days of Our Lives"; albeit, the Chinese version...)
My colleagues and I were sitting in a half-moon booth, with the loveliest purple velvet cushions. Our eyes could look in only two directions: outside the window (where to our surprise we spotted another laowai and wondered how we didn't know this Caucasian woman - don't we know every foreigner living in Hefei?) or to a slightly elevated seating area before us.
While munching away on our meals, a very angry woman with short black hair and a pink sweater angrily shoved a wooden serving tray, complete with lunch, onto a man's lap. At first we thought it was an accident however, from my direction, I knew that she had done it intentionally. Without much reaction, the man placed the tray back onto the table and began wiping off his black jacket with a napkin.
In the meantime, pink sweater lady began to yell. At first it was a quiet murmur, perhaps an attempt at some degree of social decorum. Then, the murmur turned into a high-pitched attack, whereby the man just sat in his chair, rather stunned-looking and quiet.
Thank goodness that our Chinese friend, April, had joined our Mandarin-deficient group for lunch. While we all stared, mouths agape, at this scene, April began to explain the situation.
Our pink sweater lady was yelling at her husband, who at this time, was having lunch with his girlfriend!! Can you believe it? While the wife yelled at her husband, the girlfriend who was sitting directly across from the guilty party, maintained a blank face and continued to eat her lunch.
To make matters worse, his wife asked him to leave the restaurant with her, and he refused! After more loud yelling (by this point, even the most cell-phone addicted individual is staring at the threesome) the husband succumbed and left with his wife; hence leaving the girlfriend with the bill.
What a lunch!
A.
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