Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Author:Kelly Yang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

When we got back to the motel, there was another Chinese immigrant waiting for us. Word was really getting out about the baseball cap!

Uncle Fung was an animated guy with thick eyebrows that moved up and down as he talked. He told us that he used to be an accountant back in China and now was working as a waiter over in Riverside. That was, until he got fired.

“You won’t believe this boss of mine,” he said at dinner. This time, my mom made lettuce. Literally, just lettuce. Thanks to Mr. Yao withholding our wages, it was all we could afford. But stir fried with a little garlic and soy sauce, it actually wasn’t half bad.

“What’d he do?”

“He fired me for scratching my nose!”

“What?” I said. “Really?”

“That and the fact that a customer slapped me, which by the way was completely uncalled for.”

“A customer slapped you?” my mom asked.

“She was crazy! I honestly don’t know why she slapped me,” he said. “All I was said to her was ‘Hey, baby.’ ”

My mom nearly choked on her tea.

“Well, no wonder she slapped you!” my dad said.

Uncle Fung put his chopsticks down.

“What’s wrong with ‘Hey, baby’? Americans are always saying ‘Hey, baby.’ It’s what you say when you greet somebody—everybody knows that.” He shrugged.

“It’s what you say when you greet a girlfriend or boyfriend,” my mom told him.

Uncle Fung turned bright red. “Are you serious?” he asked.

My mom nodded. Uncle Fung got up and started pacing the room. He put his hands to his face.

“I had no idea!” he said. “So many people were saying it, I just thought …”

My dad chuckled.

“It’s all right, buddy. Happens to the best of us,” he said.

“I cannot believe this. I was saying it to almost everyone,” Uncle Fung said, scratching his nose.

Something about the way he was scratching his nose caught my eye. He was scratching with his middle finger!

“Um … Uncle Fung?” I asked.

“Yeah?” he said.

He turned to me, his middle finger still on his nose. From a distance, it looked like he was flipping me off.

“What? What is it?”

He looked so innocent and earnest and at the same time so ridiculous, I just had to help him.

That night, I made Uncle Fung a pamphlet of American phrases and what they actually meant.

Mia’s Book of American Phrases and Customs:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.