This is a true story about me. Kind of funny in the today’s standard.
Came to the US in the mid 80’s. Our old friends may still remember the political and economic situations in China in those years. Before leaving the country, we went through an overseas-going training. Among the materials covered, the trainer told a sad story about an absent minded Chinese professor who was a visiting scholar at a famous US university. One day, this professor went shopping. He found his item and walked toward the front door while his mind was fully occupied by his research project. The next thing was that the security alarm sounded and he was caught for stealing. This professor, already famous in China, could not take the humiliation easily and committed suicide after being released by the police.
Reason to tell the previous story is to avoid comments like “You are stupid”
Upon the arrival of the university town, I immediately went to K-Mart for some necessities. However, I could not find anything there within my limited budget ($360 stipend per month) and decided to go on to another store. However, having not got used to the American open-shelf style stores, I felt really uncomfortable to walk out the store empty handed. After some mental struggles, I went to one girl cashier (I thought I was handsome enough and she should treat me well) and uttered “I didn’t buy anything.”
She stared in my eyes. Afraid of my poor English, I said the same thing again. Her eyes grew even bigger and rounder. My face turned red and thought “Gee, is my English that bad even my TOEFL scored more than 600 points”.
Quickly checked all my words and grammar, I repeated the sentence “I didn’t buy anything.”
After one minute or so (I guess she had finally understood why I acted that way), she smiled and said “I know. Just go.”
With a big red face, I walked away.
