Lintai Food Street

His custom-made milk top and navy blue trousers were too quality and too shiny in comparison to the mass of cheap attires all around him. He had not been difficult to pick out in the mass of bodies all around him. Off-color in too many yellows, head, a foot taller. Mr. Anthony Moses, the new Canadian Ambassador to China is enjoying his food and never noticed the three other off-colors not far off his right at the opposite table across the road. They kept wondering what his obsession with cheap street food was in the heart of the Chinese capital Beijing.

 The man is a funny fellow. Some of his staffs are still wondering how he was sent to a first-class important nation like China. This is his seventh month as ambassador to China and his staffs, all can swear without blinking an eye or checking any record that he has spent six of those seven each evening in two different street food venues about 35 minute's drive from the embassy.

Seven months ago when he was posted to the country from one central American nation, he had dined in five star hotel each day with staffs and then went into his office or residence and bury himself in food channels that seemed to be the first choice station of many diplomats posted to China. The man so loved the station and what he was being shown there that he ordered a fifty-inch flat-screen TV to be mounted for him in his office. 

Then, he spent three weeks buried in it morning, afternoon, and night. Even his wife could not thank her star enough. Where they came from, his obsession had been any tall thing in skirt and their squabbles weren’t a silent one and the wife was contemplating divorce when heaven intervened and sent them to Asia. While on the tour of the facilities and briefings by his staffs, when they came new, three Canadian girls, and two Chinese girls working there were high on the beauty side in his wife’s calculations. Gina herself is a sight too but her facial power seems to bow unconditionally to her brain power. Yet, she is not stupid or naïve enough not to know that girls are gold and position hunters. Where they poach or the concern of the rangers there is never their concern. 

To her amazement, she was more than surprised when her permutations fell through. On the first day of that tour, she was surprised to realize that it was what was being shown on the TV mounted in the hallway and other strategic places in the embassy that had captured her husband's interest more than what was being pointed out to him there in the embassy. She had noticed that the girls about five of them that flanked him on both sides were ignored throughout the tour. Unlike her husband. She had considered his interest a distracting tactic but when he ordered a giant flat TV to be mounted in his residence and office and all he watched was the street food and the vendors each day, she became more interested.

      “something must kill a man” was his wife’s take on his change of obsession. But, She preferred his new obsession to the old one that she viewed it as a blessing from heaven. An answer to the bajillion of prayers from her to heaven to intercede and save her marriage. The man was a drinker, not an eater. Why this sudden change of interest?

His staff members had found out that while on those channels watching those street chefs at work and bustling street food vendors and customers, he had signed about three papers without reading them. Two had been to test him by his Canadian colleagues when they noticed that he wasn't reading or glancing at what he was signing. His eyes will be glued to the food vendors on the screen while he pastes his signature on the documents and then, waves them away with whoever brought them. 

To think that one of the documents was intentionally drafted by his people detailing an agreement of what would happen to him, his family, and his money if he signed away his rights and betrayed his nation Canada. He did sign it without glancing at it twice and three days later, he never knew what happened. The guy was three weeks then on the job. How to report him to the appropriate quarters back home, some of his staff decided to confront him and do the admonishing at least this time by themselves.

They had waited for work to be over that particular day and when all the foreigners working in the embassy had gone home, they went to the man residence two senior staff, a security attaché. They requested for private audience with him.

 “ Your honor, we want you to take a look at this document. It’s three days old and we are more than convinced you don’t know when or how your signature came to be on it. Or, are we wrong?”

He kept eyeing the paper, it's content and eyeing the signature and then eyeing those before him.

 “Where does this paper come from?- how did my signature come to be on it and what is the meaning of this nonsense?” he asked eyeing the paper and those before him.

After telling him how, when, and why, they wanted to know whether he was under hypnosis or the influence of any kind of drug or something. “Why are you so obsessed with street food and vendors the lowest of the society frequents and patronizes?”

After about two more hours of talking and being convinced that the man had gotten his lessons, they went away happy. The next day, he moved his obsession into higher gear. He picked this behavior of sneaking out to those vendors every seven in the evening, sitting there, ordering and eating the food before spending another hour seeping Chinese tea. No takeaway, no hiring a Chinese cook to prepare those foods at home. According to him, the spirit of the food surfaces when eating among the common fellows. 

Initially, his wife had thought that her thank-given prayers had been premature when he started going out each evening and surfacing three hours later. But when she realized that it is now practical aspect of his theoretical obsession is now at work, she added more silent 'thank you' prayers. 

Three months later into his excursions, his stomach started bulging. Which is noticeable to everyone only to him. He increased the hour to four and his tasting, more and more foods. He never for once asked for the evening food and the wife didn’t bother preparing any. To compared to their years in Surinam, their marriage and respect is more solid in China. She went about her daily activities without qualms but the embassy guys don't sleep with two eyes closed. 

Not only that within four months, the man started adding weight and talking so much too. But his night excursions are making them nervous. Are they adding drugs to the food they serve him or something? 

They decided to frequent those places taste and buy food from there to be sure all was well with the man. He is behaving like someone under the influence of something. 

Their nights continued that way for months till two days ago when the man started behaving like someone trying to shake off a tail. He had been absent from his usual joint in the busy street and those on schedule to watch him had reported his absence and call to his residents had reported the same. Four hours later, he returned to his house and went straight to his diary and later to his channel and life goes on. 

The following evening, his movement was the same indirect circumvention to his new eating arena. That must be his idea of personal security not as if he knows he is being followed. It’s pitiable. What happened to his head?

It is this day they traced him to another bustling food street eating and drinking. From where they were watching him discreetly, they were hearing his booming hello, hello, hello, and Nihao, Nihao. Yet, not a drop of alcohol or Chinese tea has touched his lip.

They decided it was time to make that call home.