With A Poster, It's Paris

BEIJING -- I asked the tiny noodle stall's lone occupant, a middle-aged woman wearing a blue apron, if I could see a menu.

"It's right there," she replied, and pointed to a series of hand-painted signs hanging on one wall. I squinted, trying to read the slightly messy handwriting before decided on an order of 肉丝炒饭, or sliced-pork fried rice.

I asked the woman if they had any cold drinks, and when she replied that no, they didn't, I went door and bought a cold ice red tea.

"Cold drinks are much better than warm drinks," I said as an explanation, and the woman smiled.

The restaurant wasn't the smallest I've seen in China. There were six tables, each with three or four stools, a small container of crushed red pepper and a napkin basket. On the walls of the restaurant were three massive posters, each one several feet wide and in a plastic frame. The one under my table showed the Eiffel Tower with few Parisian fountains in the foreground. I asked the woman why she'd put up the picture.

"Because it's a nice picture, very lively," she said.

My food arrived -- a huge mound of rice covered in soy sauce, with a fair amount of sweet pork mixed inside. As I chomped away, a man with brown pants and a funny mustache entered the restaurant. He carried a plate, which he stuck in a microwave sitting the table closest to the restaurant's rear, and then came over to talk with me.

"Why aren't you drinking beer?" he said.

"Because it's too early for beer. Tonight I'll have some beer."

He picked up my book that I'd placed on the table.

"What's this?" he said.

I'm reading Dr. Zhivago, Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize winning tale of love and tragedy during the years leading up to and during the Russian Revolution. I tried to explain the plot of the book in my limited Chinese.

"The story takes place 100 years ago. There's a Russian doctor. He falls in love with a very beautiful young woman. Then there's a--"

I had to pause here and go for my yellow dictionary and look up the word for war. When I read the dictionary's first entry zhanzheng, the man didn't understand. I tried again, but with no luck. It's probably best that I didn't have to continue my book summary, as I would have to look "revolution," "exile," "Communism" and "Siberia," before long.

The man then took my dictionary and started flipping through the pages. He giggled at a few entries, but I when I asked to see what he was laughing at, he showed me the word "swat." I don't think that's terribly funny.

The microwave timer went off and the man fetched his plate and walked out the door, leaving me to finish my rice.

This is nothing special -- a cheap meal, a couple of new conversation companions, and a pretty good time. It seems I can't duck into a back alley with meeting someone interesting; a person who throws up a picture of the Eiffel Tower to make sure quiet cafe seem busier, a man who thinks I should drink in the middle of the afternoon.

"Your food is very good," I told the restaurant owner before leaving. "I'll be back to look at your wall again soon."