Oh my god, I’m SO EXCITED. There’s an Asian grocery store down the road on Plöck, where Kennedy lives. I’ve popped in and out to purchase curry, rice, noodles, various things I’ve craved. The old Asian man who works there doesn’t speak English, only German, so it’s always hard to communicate and I usually resort to hand signals.

I just went in to buy satay sauce for tonight’s dinner and on impulse, I asked him, “Are you Chinese?” And he said yes in Mandarin. It was AMAZING. I speak incredibly elementary Mandarin but I know enough to understand people even though I have a hard time articulating myself. So we had a full-fledged conversation in which I explained that my parents are Cantonese, that I’m from California and go to school at Harvard, and that I’m living with my friend who is studying at the University of Heidelberg. I told him that I speak Cantonese and learned conversational Mandarin from listening to my mother speak it. He also asked me my Chinese name, which I told him, and then he wrote it down on paper to check if it was what he thought (it was).

This was incredibly, incredibly exciting. I do not comprehend German at ALL despite having dated a German guy for the past three months, been best friends with a girl learning German, and lived here for two weeks now. So this is the first person I’ve met in this country with whom I can actually COMMUNICATE without having to resort to English. He even told me that I spoke Mandarin very well, which is a huge compliment since everyone tells me I speak it with a Valley Girl accent (everyone includes Jason who doesn’t even know Mandarin so he can’t judge, but also Patrick who embarrassingly enough has better pronunciation than I do).

Thank you Asian grocery store man!! I now want to stake out your store and become your best friend. YAY.