Moment #512. Chinese declined at restaurant. Wed, Jan 18, 2006.

01/18/2006. This was an "almost." On my way home I stopped at a Chinese buffet that I hadn't been to before. I asked the cashier, who seemed very Americanized, where their family was from, and she said China. I asked if she liked to read Chinese and she said no, that she only went to first grade there before coming here. I showed her the Simplified Chinese and English copies of the Book of Mormon but she wasn't interested.

I put my stuff down at a table, and put the two books out, and went to get some food from the buffet. The waitress noticed the books. I could tell by her speech that she was a more recent immigrant.

One of the times the waitress passed my table, she touched the Chinese Book of Mormon that I had displayed on my table. I offered both books, but she indicated she didn't read English. I opened both books to 1 Nephi 1:1, to demonstrate that they were the same book in two languages, and she got that part. She accepted the Chinese book and sat down at the table next to mine and started reading it. A good sign, but she eventually gave it back.

I wasn't sure if she understood it was free, so I later offered it to her again, and she again sat at the next table and read some more, and eventually gave it back again. She was very polite and humble.

She apparently wasn't interested in the content, but I'm not sure she grasped the bilingual nature and the possibility of learning English from the two books.

I felt rather positive about the place and the experience, so I plan on going back for lunch some time.