Moment #588. Chinese at restaurant. Wed, May 24, 2006.

05/24/2006. I was out doing errands and it was time for dinner. I drove past a Chinese restaurant in a strip mall on the NW side of town. I've shopped at an ethnic grocery store at the other end of the same strip mall before. And I've passed this place a zillion times before while driving on the main drag, but I don't recall driving to that end of the strip mall.

I decided to check it out. It's a sit-down place, and they were busy with carry-out and delivery orders. The back-lit pictures above the counter and the standardized menus were like most other small strip-mall Chinese restaurants.

I ordered and sat down, and put out copies of the Book of Mormon in Chinese and English, and put out a couple copies of the Chinese Liahona and an English Liahona that corresponded to the same issue as one of the Chinese issues.

One of the employees did a classic double-take on the magazines as he was leaving to make a delivery. He stopped, turned around, and asked if I read Chinese. I said no, and that I brought them for him. I handed him the Chinese one, and he eagerly took it. I offered the English issue to go along with it, and he accepted it too. He took them both to the counter before leaving for a delivery.

An other employee, probably his wife, brought my food, noticed the Books of Mormon, but didn't say anything. When the man came back, he came back over to my table, and I tried to offer the Chinese Book of Mormon, but he didn't seem interested, but I couldn't figure out why. I didn't have any Chinese or Chinese/English Bibles, and that may have been why.

I finished my meal and went out and retrieved a Bible in Chinese Simplified Script (not a bilingual one) from the car.

I took the Chinese Bible, a Chinese and an English Book of Mormon, and the Finding Happiness DVD to the counter, and presented them to the lady who I thought was his wife. She had been reading the Chinese Liahona while her husband was reading a Chinese newspaper. She gratefully accepted them.