Moment #563. Chinese declined. Fri, Apr 28, 2006.

04/28/2006. On my way to visit someone, I ate at a very nice Chinese buffet in the next town over. I laid out the two kinds of Chinese Books of Mormon and a bilingual Chinese/English New Testament, on the table as I ate. When my waitress brought a refill of my softdrink, I asked where she was from. Like many other Chinese restaurant employees, her English language skills seemed concentrated on restaurant vocabulary. She said she was from China. I handed the Simplified Chinese Book of Mormon to her and said it was free and that I would like to give it to her. She pronounced the name of the title in Chinese, but then pointed to the subtitle and shook her head. I was confused if she meant she was non-Christian, as in Buddhist, or whether she was Christian and didn't want another "Bible." I assumed she was Buddhist. She was extremely polite, but made it clear she wasn't interested, so whatever her motivations were in declining, I decided not to press.

If the other person shows confusion about what the book is, or what it is that I'm offering, then I continue to try to explain, but this was a clear no-thanks, and I take that as my signal to shut down.

The host/cashier was an Asian man, but he might not have been Chinese. I thought I heard him say a phrase to someone in Tagalog, and later I heard him speaking Chinese. When I left, he was busy with customers coming in, so there was no convenient opening to approach him.