Three Years Later, Finally Vindicated

This blog post should have been written during WWDC 11, but my jet lag was so bad that week that I was drowsy the whole time. I found it in my drafts. Digging it out to finish it.

Three years ago, I went to the US for WWDC for the first time. I had a language disaster at a small Western restaurant and ate in complete embarrassment. See the original post:

How do you like your (eggs

steak) cooked?

[Reference to 2008 blog post]

This time during the conference, I couldn’t find dinner anywhere, and I ended up at the same restaurant near the venue. That familiar “three eggs, beef steak” signboard came into view again. The price had gone up from $7.40 three years ago to $7.90. Only a 6% increase in three years — not bad. The American imperialist people can stay calm about that. Compared to pork prices in China, life under imperialism truly is unimaginable.

I went in, sat down, and ordered the same “migrant worker’s steak combo.” The waiter came over. This time I was prepared, waiting for that long-anticipated “How do you like your eggs cooked.” Sure enough, the familiar ordering line came. This time I was ready: “Scrambled eggs with mushrooms and onions, topped with pepper.” The waiter said, “Pepper’s on your table, we don’t serve that, help yourself.” Then: “How do you like your steak cooked?” Ha, I calmly answered, “Well done.”

But then — then the waiter had one more question. This one was worse — there were words I didn’t recognize, and I couldn’t understand the whole sentence at all. Turns out three years ago, the waiter probably didn’t even finish asking before realizing we couldn’t communicate and just kicked us out. But this time I wasn’t going to capsize again. I pulled out my trump card: “What is your recommendation?” The waitress said another bunch of things I couldn’t understand. I said, “Great, that’s exactly what I wanted, bring it on.”

Done. Finally vindicated. The feeling was like chatting and laughing with Wallace himself.