Dinner with Germers

Germer: noun, Chinese Origin (slang) (1) an informal word for greeting or addressing a good friend; roughly equivalent to the American slang term, “home boy.” (2) an informal term which Zachry employees have been using to describe persons of Chinese origin.

So two Thursdays ago, I had a dinner date with two germers...

Stephen, Nick and I were invited to eat “real Chinese food” by our hotel’s door man, Leo Sun, or more commonly known to the Zachry crew by his English name, “Styles-Pimpin.”

Let me elaborate on the type of guy who chooses such a unique name for himself. “Styles” is the guy in the red uniform who opens the door for us every time we come back from work and greets us with “Nee-hao, goo-evening, How-sit-goin, what-sup,” and, the phrase I taught him, my personal favorite, “howdy-yaw.” He got his English nickname from two different employees (probably inebriated) at the same time. One called him styles and the other called him pimpin’, and Leo Sun liked both so he took on Styles as his English first name and Pimpin as his last.

Styles is a favorite with the Zachry guys because he speaks decent English; his language skills have much improved during our stay here because every Zachry employee who goes in or out of the hotel will often exchange a few words with him. As you can tell by his chosen name, he especially loves to learn American slang.

I loaned Leo Sun my camera a while back to take a picture with a Chinese TV star who stayed in our hotel overnight, and in return he offered dinner. Now I am not one to refuse an invitation to free food, even when it threatens to be “real Chinese.” Styles brought another germer and Stephen and Nick were the only of my friends who were brave enough to come along.

The food was awesome! We ate lamb leg drumsticks, lamb-kebobs, peanuts and green beans, noodle soup (our hosts said that the noodles were each over a meter long; there might have only been enough room for ten noodles in that big bowl.) and several ping pijio. Styles knows just enough English, and I just enough Chinese that we and our friends could talk and joke together for more than an hour and not run out of things to say.

This is a very unique kind of friendship. Styles and I communicate every day in a blending of English and Chinese which takes a lot of patience and verbal creativity, but is really good practice for both of us. Still, in a friendship like this one, the language barrier still prevents us from talking about deeper, more complicated and abstract subjects like religion, and women.

Last Sunday Stephen, Nick, and I returned the favor and took Styles and his friend to Grandma’s Kitchen for an American feast of steak, fajitas, pepperoni pizza, hamburger, chicken fried steak, chicken cordon-bleu, onion rings, cheese fries, and mashed potatoes. They had never eaten at an American restaurant before, and were quite impressed with the food. Leo Sun’s friend even said that he liked it better than Chinese food (of the veracity of his statement, I am skeptical.)

These are the first two bonafide Chinese friends I have made in this country, and they are a lot of fun to hang out with. I hope that before I leave here, my communication skills develop enough so that I can transcend surface conversation and talk about the more abstract.

Peace y’all.