Non Kun San

The landlady was due to come and give me a cookery lesson at the same time that J was having her Chinese lesson. The cookery lessons came about because I had bought a couple of cookery books in Carrefour when we first arrived. The books are in Chinese, but each recipe was illustrated with a lovely colour picture. So we could pick which picture we liked the look of, show it to the Ayi, specify a time and she would cook it for us. But I wanted to have a go at these genuine Chinese recipes myself, which was how the landlady ended up volunteering (via the interpreter) to cook them, while I watched her and wrote down in English what she did. Simple.

The previous Ayi used to come here on her bike, and if she needed to go shopping for anything, she went on her bike. With the new Ayi not having a bike, I managed to make Charley the driver understand that he needed to take her to the supermarket to get the ingredients required for my lesson. In the end, J and I decided to go with them, and so at 2.00pm, I found myself touring the local supermarket (no Western translations here, except the odd one that creeps onto a label here and there – this is more helpful than you might imagine, as it not only tells you what’s in that particular bottle, it also gives you a clue as to what the entire aisle might contain) with Charley and the Ayi.

We had to go upstairs to get a jar of pineapple chunks, and this took us past the household equipment. The Ayi paused longingly beside the ironing boards (the previous Ayi burnt a hole in the one we’ve got) and I nodded to indicate she could have a new one. She fairly skipped round carrying her new ironing board, and when I said she could have a new mop too, I knew I had a friend for life.
On our way back downstairs, J diverted into the children’s clothes section. This always draws a crowd of excited shop assistants, who all gather round to watch her flick through the rails of summer dresses. She picked one out and held it up. This drew gasps from the admiring crowd, and off she went to the clothes till to pay for it. She handed over her 110RMB and stood waiting for her 1RMB change. It did not appear. The lady on the till then started having an argument with another customer, and J had been forgotten. I checked her receipt, which showed the price as 110RMB, even though the label showed 109RMB. Charley and the Ayi immediately took up the cause, and stood arguing with the crowd of assistants. The assistants made it quite clear that as far as store policy was concerned, it didn’t matter what the label said - it was what the barcode said that mattered. After much typical Chinese excitement and chattering, we admitted defeat and went downstairs to pay for the rest of the food. But the Ayi still wasn’t happy, and disappeared somewhere with J’s dress. Ten minutes later she returned, triumphantly brandishing a 1RMB note. I wonder if Confucius said anywhere that if you make sure your Ayi has good tools to work with, she will in turn make sure you don’t get ripped off by barcode trickery.