Crab ragoons, body language, and Americanism, they don't mix. Trust me.

I love eating Chinese food. Especially when you call it in, you get a funny Chinese guy or girl, who repeats everything you say, and I got the guy laughing yesterday. We got 4 orders of crab ragoons. He was like 4? 1 2 3 4? Yes I said, We like crab ragoons a lot. He thought this was hilarious.

A lot of times I find that the Chinese restaurant owners and workers, are at one extreme or another. Either they are really happy or really angry. There is no balance. Lucky for me I always get the funny ones. Laughter crosses over the language barrier a lot of times.

Although we had one angry one when we lived in Marquette. We kept going back to her restaurant, because they had such good food. She softened up when she saw us and especially Laurel, which we found out she had a soft spot for babies. That's when we started to get free wonton soup and other cool stuff. So she turned out to be a really happy one, if the right people came along.

Is that the way it is with our lives? The right people come around and we are super happy, but if someone is a drag, then we either take one extremity or another, we ignore them, and move on, or have this really crappy day. I know I have to watch myself around these people. Otherwise I turn into a negative walking talking beast. And I don't like that about myself. Really, it keeps me in check, because then I am watching what comes out of my mouth and watch what my body gestures are saying as well. Which I should be doing anyways.

Which is another thing. I should study body language, it's something I understand, although I can't find words for it half the time. Well, they say that the English language is one of the most limited languages. The Americanize version has only been around for 200 years, what do they expect? When did they start speaking English anyways? Why is it that Greeks have 4 different words for one English word. And the lesser articles have one word for 50 of ours? Doesn't make sense to me.

So I'll rely on my attempts to break the barrier of body language. I don't think that half the time people are sensitive to it, they don't realize that it affects their decisions. If I were to say something to you and roll my eyes (which I can't do by the way, roll my eyes, kinda like rolling you tongue, some people can, some can't) the point: you would take it as I was being sarcastic, whatever I just said, I meant the opposite. But what if I said it, and saw something going on behind you that I thought was ridiculous, and rolled my eyes? Depended on if you saw me look behind you or not.

I guess the point is that, in communication, 90% of what we say and do is misunderstood.

So are those Chinese workers actually angry? Probably not, they either don't want to be bothered, or just don't want to be working that day, or any day for that matter. They probably don't understand why Americans are so disgustingly "rich" and frivolous in everything they do. And maybe that's something to think about. What they consider respect, is barely thought of here in the states. Sure we shake hands, but do we incline our heads to show respect? Get real. We barely trust ourselves, let alone anyone else.

And that's what America is about? When I think of America, I think of Freedom. Isn't that the whole ideal of America? Isn't that the appeal to other nations? Only I'm sure they will do a better job with freedom than we did. (That was sarcastic. Human beings are so predictable, aren't they?!)

This is a long post so I'll wrap it (my book) up. I love America, I love the fact that we are free to worship the way we want to, we are free to work where we want. To have dreams. I don't think it would hurt us any to take a long and hard look at our fellow countries, and see they aren't afraid to sit on their doorstep or talk to their neighbors. To share their lives and show respect. I was backing out of the gas station in DeWitt and this lady whips around the corner and right behind me, so I put on the brakes. She decides to slow down, open her window, saying something as she glared at me as she purposefully slowed down and creeped by. I'm sure if she wasn't holding on to her cigarette a finger would have been flying by as well. And that's freedom.

Freedom is disgusting somedays.