(Angry) New China take-out!!!

"I hate all you round-eye!", said, of course, with my worst/best - depending on one's PC perspective - Charlie Chan voice. That's the most apt description of my latest experience at the local Chinese take-out kitchen and can be ascribed to the surly lotus flower behind the counter bearing a remarkable resemblance to a young Jiang Qing.

For those of you not familiar with such, a Chinese kitchen is different from a restaurant. There is no waitstaff in the former and the kitchen is fully visible. One meanders up to the counter and tries to discern one's order for accuracy repeated back by the, usually female, family member manning the cash register & phone for deliveries. Usually the cheerfulness experienced borders on saccharine, but, alas, I have discovered a bileous tumour in this stereotype at my nearest Sino outpost.

Said infamous wife of the Chairman - during younger and more fashionably-pleasing days - is pictured to the left. Qing was an actress and quite beautiful, it is reputed, before assenting to be Mao's "wife" - a loose term, albeit, for the Fifth Sword of Marxism and a top three all-time butcher of humanity. [Pol Pot, %-wise, still beats his one-time northern neighbor, but Zedong gets the prize for longeivity.]

The resemblance to Jiang had not struck me at the time my Shrimp Lo Mein was being sullenly proffered, but - while reminiscencing about the last good Szechuan Eggplant of which I had partook - the resemblance struck me like a pair of chopsticks hurled by some 8 year old as boomerang practice off his daft younger brother's head. Being the requisite soul of benificence and empathy, I was struck immediately by the continued, albeit muted, truculence of the young female taking my order the day before last. Previously I had attributed such to temporary dyspepsia, but the trend was now more obvious and offensive than a set of forged 1960 steel production charts whipped-up to appease the Great Leap Forward's new annual smelting quotas.

Why this particular co-opted Cantonese vixen is so encased in ill humour, I know not. Probably would make a good story, but I've seen the non-foot bound lass wield a heavy cleaver to separate my spare ribs and I'm not going to tempt an Emergency Room sojourn just to appease my latent curiousity. Better to stick with snaring a few extra Sweet & Sour sauce packets for future BBQ marinades, quietly hand over my plastic for payment and leave the scene in diametrically opposite fashion as my original reference - now "Mrs. Gang Of Four" in scene to the left from the Xiaoping-directed show trial & her ultimate downfall (despite employing a defense hinged upon her comment that "I was Chairman Mao's dog to bite any hand he said").