Even though you knew about the great rice/wheat cultivation divide, the extent to which you missed rice after one-and-a-half weeks in China surprised you. But now—after countless delicious but rice-less meals with millet porridge, mantou, and/or dumplings as the primary carb delivery vessels—you and your older sister are finally let loose upon the city of Qingdao to pick a meal for yourself.
It is 4:30 p.m. on a weekday. You ate so much at the hotel breakfast that lunch was patched up with a snack, but now you are very hungry. It is time for something spicy and ricey. You are armed with Chinese fluency and a working Alipay. But no creature is perfect, and so you are also functionally illiterate.
Finding a restaurant is easy. There is a mall directly across from your hotel room, with real food. When you scoped out the food floors the previous night, this restaurant was pretty crowded. But seeing as it is 4:30 p.m. on a weekday, you are the only two people in there.
The ordering is done by swiping a QR code through Alipay. At first you try to swipe the wrong QR code, on account of your functional illiteracy. A waiter quickly guides you to the correct one—no harm done. You order two bowls of rice, two vegetable dishes, and a sort of spicy stir-fried fish dish with bean sprouts, like a remixed 水煮鱼.
The food is served within minutes. It is delicious. You had concerns about the amount of ordered rice, but five minutes in it's evident that the two bowls were necessary. While you are enjoying the meal, another waiter approaches you. She says something quickly about an app and free fruit tea, but neither of you catch exactly what. You look at each other in confusion. Then she says, "Never mind," and is about to walk away. Your sister is more than willing to let it slide, but you (singular) have latched furiously onto the idea of free fruit tea. You ask her to repeat what you need to do.
What she wants is a review on Chinese food app Dianping. You do not have this app, and so you have to download it. You show her your app store for her to type in the app's name. She is confused by your app store being in Spanish, but quickly finds it and starts downloading. "Let me know when it's done downloading," she says. While the app is downloading, someone delivers the fruit tea—iced, a small pitcher's worth—and two glasses with the same alacrity that the food was delivered.
This is alarming. You have not yet left a review, and the historical track record of using Chinese apps with an American passport and phone number has been extremely spotty. You and your sister look at each other and agree: The fruit tea will not be touched until the task is completed.
The app downloads. You call the waiter over and give her your phone again. She asks you if you can read Chinese. You are forced to tell her that you cannot. It is not quite 5 p.m. You are sitting at one of two occupied tables in the entire restaurant. She takes it upon herself to leave the review, but then, as you feared, hits a wall. "Oh, it's asking me to do identity verification ... that's too much effort." She returns your phone.
You all look at the fruit tea, which is already sitting on the table. She says something like, "Well, I'll give you the tea to taste," and fills the glasses, and then walks away, leaving the still mostly full pitcher. You drink your glasses. It tastes like pomegranate juice and humiliation, and, like the food, is very delicious. You look at the rest of the tea, which remains at the edge of the table.
On one hand, you didn't actually perform the task that should've earned you the tea. Maybe there was some connotation missing, but she definitely used the word "taste" when she poured you the glass. Even if she meant to leave the entire pitcher, is it morally wrong to drink it? If you don't drink the rest of it, maybe they'll just recall it after the meal, top it up a bit, and serve it to someone else who had completed the task. On the other hand, do restaurants ever do that? What if it does go to waste? Also, what if, in the event that the waiter did leave the pitcher on the table on purpose, she thinks that you're spitting upon her generosity? It wasn't like you walked in and decided to scam a free pitcher of tea. You made a real, honest effort.
Now sitting at one of three filled tables at the restaurant, you are forced to make a decision: Do you drink the rest of the fruit tea?
