More specifically, of potential embarrassment arising from not knowing exactly how to buy food at any given food-selling place. This is not entirely a being-in-China problem: it took a good few months before I went to the Souvlaki Hut at my Uni back in Australia, because I had never been to Souvlaki Hut, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to order, and what the meals were called, and what if I ordered a ‘Large’ when there is only one size, what would they think…!

But it is magnified over here. Language isn’t the problem- although it is a lot easier for me to talk about linguistics or big world events with friends in Chinese than it is to, like, order a bowl of noodles. And there are still pretty big chunks of the menu in most places where I’d be missing at least one character from the name of a dish, which would be like trying to order spa__tti bo__nese. And what if I walk into a place and it’s full, or closed, or I can’t find something I recognise on the menu, or I mistake someone who isn’t a waiter for a waiter, or what if I go to the one place for a few meals in a row and they think it’s weird, or… Obviously none of these are actually practical difficulties for foreigners buying food in China. Plenty of people with no Chinese at all manage, probably a lot better than me. Just, you know- Potential minor embarrassment! Irrational terror!

So anyway, this evening, instead of waiting until I was starving and then going out and walking in circles for an hour or so before getting up the courage to walk into a place to eat, I went to the noodle place next door as soon as I was hungry. This afternoon, instead of walking past the baked-goods place outside the supermarket 3 times before slinking off in defeat, I walked past twice and then bought some cupcakes. They are coconut cupcakes, and I don’t like coconut. Baby steps.