Kung Fu and Love

Kung Fu and Love
A great gift for Valentine's day or Chinese New Year

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

A Jehova's Witness visit

The doorbell rings and I creep away from napping Jonah. I answer the door to a crisp clean dressed black man looking for Mr. Cheung. He looked confused that I (a white man) answered the door.
I smiled, "Yeah that's me."
"Oh... " he smiled back, "no that's okay we get all types. We are reaching out to the Chinese community and I just wanted to leave this pamphlet with you" and then he read the title in mandarin. I recognized three of the six words in there. "Do you read or anyone in your family read Chinese?"
"I actually don't read and I speak the most Chinese of anyone in this household... I think you probably read more Chinese than I do."
He laughed back, "No only a little."
Normally once people selling me stuff at the door leave me off the hook I'm quick to shut the door but I had to know.
"So what organization are you from?"
"Jehova's Witnesses."
The answer was kind of disappointing.
"Did you study in China?" I asked.
"No actually just here..... for the purpose of reaching out to the Chinese Community. People usually respond more to their home language. But I guess if you've been here this is your home language."
We laughed and that was that.
I guess this story wouldn't even be worth noting except that a black man who learned Chinese to sell religion to a Chinese man rings a doorbell to find a white Mr. Cheung answering the door. It almost sounds like the beginning of a joke or something.
Actually I guess I should have asked him if there were free Mandarin classes for Jehova's witnesses or for going to church services.

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