“one person?”

“yes please.”

She looked at me sceptically and asked, “take away?”

“no, eat in.”

She looked at me briefly with a bemused expression, then finished writing down the order. As she walked out, I could see a half-concealed smirk – I knew she was laughing at me for some reason. Well, that’s expected, I probably looked pretty foreign to her, maybe from a difference province, as I was wearing nice glasses, watch and had a nice Nike backpack. Or maybe my mandarin was not very good.

So, the cold dish arrived on a plate of a size which I was expecting, but it was a mountain (I’d say 10 cm high) of veggies. A lot. But it was nice.

And the shizitou. Oops, I forgot how big they were. Each of them was bigger than one of my closed fists. OK. No wonder the waitress was laughing at me.

The photos were especially deceptive about the size of the last dish, because the bread (ten in total) looked tiny but were in fact was a proper size which I think were meant to be shared with three others.

By now, I was sweating profusely, as I usually do when I feel very self-aware. The people at the other table was looking at me. And I could hear gossiping (about me) amongst the idle waitresses behind my back, literally. I tried to shut everyone out mentally but every time I looked out the window and pretended to stare off in the distance, I could see a woman from the other table just staring at me.

I suddenly wished for a minute that I was a Caucasian – I would not mind people looking at me because I would be different. Somehow, it was even more embarrassing being a Chinese person who did not understand the local culture. Now, even the people in buses which had stopped in traffic outside the window were looking at how much food was on my table. I looked down and could see a huge dark patch of sweat on the front of my light brown shirt and I could feel my back clinging to a drenched and cold shirt.

Eventually, I got the waitress to turn up the air-conditioner. I was not hot – just hugely embarrassed, but I needed a distraction. When I gave up, I got her to pack up the food, and tried to talk to her in a feeble attempt to diffuse my awkwardness. I told her that I was from Hong Kong and that the shizitou there were much smaller. She laughed and told me that she thought I was a foreigner. I left the restaurant as quick as possible after the bill was paid and food was packed.