How I like my eggs in China

Almost four years ago my wife and I were in China to adopt and bring our son home. There are a lot of fun, funny and sad memories from that trip. It was amazing and life changing in so many ways. One of the funnier moments was when I was trying to order my eggs. We were staying at a nice hotel that had an amazing breakfast. A part of that breakfast featured the ability to go up to a cook and ask for eggs cooked the way you wanted them. So, I went up and asked for fried eggs, no runny yoke. The only thing is, the idea of breaking the egg yoke seemed foreign to this chef. So there he was, cooking the eggs sunny side up like always, not understanding that I didn’t want a runny yoke.

Realizing that his English and my English weren’t exactly meshing, I gave up on verbal communication and settled for hand motions. How do you make the hand motion for “break the yoke?” Maybe a stabbing motion or a flattening motion? But then he might think I wanted pancakes rather than eggs… At any rate, eventually, I made him understand that I didn’t want runny eggs, and with a look that was part bewilderment and part disdain he broke the yoke and cooked the egg for me. It was an amusing incident that makes me smile today. He had his assumptions on how eggs must be cooked and now my assumptions had gone against his.

It makes me wonder where I’m doing that in my life. What am I doing daily that I can’t conceive of being done another way, possibly a better way, or just a different way? I want to make sure my eyes are open to new possibilities, even with something as simple as how to cook an egg.

Posted in ,