Dear Empty Street

Dear Empty Street,

What is this? Some sort of joke – you bang your pots and pans and scream, and when the foreigners come to the window everyone scatters? “What noise, silly foreigners?” Classic. You probably saw it in an American movie – Toy Story, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit? maybe. Now everyone will think we’re going crazy when we try to show them the source of that ceaseless, obnoxious, maddening, sleep-depriving noise.

And maybe we are crazy. Maybe we are. But at least we don’t spend every single day chain-smoking cigarettes, reading the newspaper, betting our rice money away on games of Crazy Eights, and occasionally trying – but failing – to rip off customers for rancid hunks of pork shoulder. I’m talking to you, butcher. We know bargaining is part of your culture, but, quite frankly, you suck at it. How many times, peering from our window, have we watched you throw away a potential sale, all over a jiao (about .015 cents) or two? Perhaps, instead of banking on that one sweet hand that will rob your only friends of their livelihoods, you should chill your pride and focus on your actual business.

And don’t think you’re off the hook, either, tofu man. Maybe you think you’re fooling those folks down on ground level, but from our vantage point we have a full view of that shameful comb-over of yours. Also, we know what sort of an influence you’ve been on the butcher, fiendishly orbiting him like some Chinese Iago, breathing smoky schemes into his innocent ears. It’s no mystery whose idea it was to abandon your posts and leave all that meat and bean curd to the flies.

Ok. The joke’s over. But please, stay away as long as you wish. It’s quite peaceful with you all gone.

Sincerely,

This Ridiculous World

"Related" posts:

1. Dear Business Men Who Drink too Much Soju and Pass Out on the Street
2. Dear Big Ants Who Were Bossing Around the Little Ants
3. Dear Young Chinese Man with the Crazy Hair