Rice porridge in the pot nine days old.
So it's official: I am a teacher. I can prove it because now I have a meal card for the staff cafeteria, okay so I could be a janitor, or the mail lady. Anyway, I've had it for nine days now.
Nine rice filled days.
Picture a tiny room at the back of a large building with about five huge round tables in it (all complete will massive lazy susans). Picture it stuffed full of chopsticks, metal trays, dishes buzzing with MSG, and free rice porridge. Picture the only foreigner whose ever walked in there leaning through the window into the kitchen, grinning about as big as her face can allow, handing over her meal card, and asking in the most rudimentary Chinese four meat buns and one egg boiled in tea to the astonishment of the entire cooking staff all of whom pause to witness the event. Picture her filling a small bowl with tasteless warm soy milk and sliding into a nearby seat.
If you can picture that then you have seen my breakfasts. All nine of them.
But what is going to be harder for you to picture is the way that the mail lady dips out a bowl of the free soup for me because, though she speaks no English, she was the only person I recognized in the cafeteria and thus she ended up with my presence at her table. Or the way that some school official, you can tell by his suit, whom I've never been introduced to always looks stunned when he walks in and sees me sitting there and yet manages to overcome his surprise to ask me if I like the food in English. Or the way that a teacher who insists that he's not my friend pulls up a chair next to me to chat over lunch. Or the way that another teacher stuffs steamed buns into his face every morning like he's never eaten anything before. Or the way that the kitchen staff grins and giggles when I walk in. Or the way that my boss comes over to my table to ask to see my meal card and shakes his head in dispair that I haven't used it enough.
I love the staff cafeteria. I don't care that the food is mediocre and the room is too small. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that I walk out of there smelling like burnt oil. I am not phased by the fact that at any given moment I am not able to speak to nine out of every ten people in there. I love it.
I love it because it's life. All the teachers eat there. All the administrators eat there. All the people who do anything at the school at all eat there. It's their life and now... I'm a part of it.
Some like it hot, some like it cold... I'm fine with it in the pot nine days old.
