Chinese Manicure

Now that my first ambition of having a blog is well under course, I figured I should get started on my next one. Yesterday, I had a revelation and it was suddenly clear to me what my next move should be: learn Chinese.

This may seem to come out of the blue and be totally random, but there is a perfectly good and sensible explanation for it. Last night, as I rushed from work to go to a friend's birthday dinner, I had to squeeze in a manicure. The place I usually go to was packed, and being pressed for time I found a new place, which was actually much nicer. When I got to sit down, one of the ladies sitting at the other end of the table (she will be referred to as "Greta" for the sake of simplicity) complimented me on my necklace (it was either my necklace or my shirt, she just kind of pointed and said "beautiful!"). I thanked her and sat down as my nail lady ("Lynn") agreed with her and smiled at me.

Now this is where learning Chinese becomes relevant. After I thanked her, Lynn looked at Greta and they exchanged a coy little smile, and started blabbing away in Chinese. That's not so bad yet, since any reasonable person will tell you they could have been talking about anything. But THEN Lynn just kept on staring at my necklace, smiling and talking to Greta, then laughing and looking at me with the sweetest of all smiles that all but screamed at me "Haha! I can talk about you and you have no idea what i'm saying!!" That's when I had my revelation.
It was further reinforced when a short, white-haired man walked in and asked for a manicure, and all the innocent-looking pedicurists made comments (at least I imagine they were comments about him, they wouldn't just happen to start discussing politics...would they?). And they all started laughing, which further piqued my curiosity.
Now wouldn't it be great if I spoke Chinese and just understood everything they were saying? Plus, I could probably get some "designer" bags for much cheaper over on Canal Street.

But that's the beauty of language. Gotta love it, it's a wonderful thing, really.