One late night in Jianshui, we were looking for something to eat, doubting anything would open at this late hour. Then we stumbled upon this little night market with full of barbecue stalls. Chicken feet, pig feet, chicken butt… No, we weren’t in the mood for a heavy barbecue.
“Mi-sheng?”
We used our little Chinese skill to ask if they have a noodle soup. Luckily, one guy understood and made us a really good chicken noodle soup. Exactly what we needed.
We asked how much, guessing it would be 6 ~ 10 yuan a bowl. Then he was smiling and saying,
“Meiguoa?”
It means America.
“Yes, Meiguoa and Hanguoa.”
American and Korean, we are.
“One Meiguoa, one.”
“… What?”
I pulled out my notepad, wrote down America and Korea in Chinese and pointed out the sentence means how much it is. But still, he kept smiling and saying one, Meiguoa, one Meiguoa. We had absolutely zero idea what he wanted. He didn’t seem like want to scam us or anything. His body language was very friendly.
We gave 20yuan note on his hand and stood confused. Then he gave us the money back and made a gesture that you can go now, again, smiling. So, you like us but you don’t want money from us?
So we offered him a beer.
“Come, we’ll buy you a beer instead. You don’t charge us for food, so we’ll buy you a beer.”
But he was shaking his hand and making the gesture that it’s okay. Huh. Lost again. What does he want then? Then we remembered he was pointing 1 yuan bill while he was saying one Meiguoa.
“Oh, you meant, THIS?”
I wrote down “$”, the universal language of American dollar, on my notepad and showed it to him.
“Yes, yes!”
He looked happy.
Now, finally we understood each other. So he wanted us to pay with 1 US dollar bill instead of Chinese Yuan. Technically, it would be less than what he normally charges for noodle soup because 1 US$ is just 6 CNY but his food must be 10 CNY a bowl. So, he was interested in American bill than his business.
Stephen travels with American dollar but not at that moment. We promised him to come back with 1 US$ bill and left without paying anything for our dinner, one of the best actually.
Did we come back?
Yes, we did, the night before we left Jianshui. We gave him 1 US$ bill, as we promised and had another bowl of noodle soup.
So, really, how much does he charge for the noodle soup?
I have no idea, because he refused to get our money this time as well. He was so happy that we came with 1US$.
So, what did we do?
We paid the dinner with another 1US$. And he gave second dollar to his wife.
