The big Table

Chapter 1
The Big Table

Chapter Description: A couple arrives to join a big round table of Chinese family, and bring much happiness.

"Please come and join us! Really! We’d love to have you!" They sit, looking at all the unfamilar faces round the table, aprehensively.

"Relax. To make things easier, we can even make you into a Chinese, so you’ll feel right at home. First you’ll need to give us a little help." We tried to sound welcoming.

"You can’t change us?" the guests inqired?

"We very much can. We’ve done such things on special occasions for a very long time in China. To make it easy, we’ll give you a paper. Write on it a number for the age you’d like to be and a letter, M or F to choose a gender. Don’t show the paper to anyone. with it so far?" I tried to keep a straight face.

"OK. You guys are fun, but we can’t really believe you. What to do next?"

"Easy. Fold the paper and hold it in your teeth. Now, both together, go under the table and tablecloth from one side of the round table to the other. When you reach the other side, the transformation will be complete. Are you ready to write?"

The pair laughed nervously. Then the young man declared, "This is fun. The worst that can happen is a good laugh from getting two strangers to crawl about on a restaurant floor."

"You can always repeat the trick to go back, any time you want. Write and crawl. Easy!" My sister Su-lan was sounding ever more enthusiastic.

Then as we watched, both our guest began to write. They each folded the paper, clenched it between their teeth and dove under the table. A moment later and one head appeared under the tablecloth on the opposite side. A gasp of wonder rippled round the table as the head emerged. There stood a twenty-year old attactive woman, dressed in latest Chinese fashion. She smiled nervously and then sat.

"Welcome!" we said. "How should we call you?"

"Xiao-hua."

Just when we were wondering about the progress of the other under-table traveler, a second bump appeared under the tablecloth. A little help with the tablecloth and we were all looking at a fine young man, maybe two years old. He had a tee with a big bear on it, and Chinese young kids’ pants -the kind that are open underneath for rapid taking care of bathroom calls.

"Welcome!" we said again. "What is your name?"

"Ming-ming"

"Come Ming-ming, We’ll help you up to a seat. A waitress produced a booster seat and Ming-ming was all set at the table. Gramma and Xaio-hua took care of feeding Ming-ming, who enjoyed himself enormously. Conversation ranged, but never touched on the contents of the two folded little papers on the table. Who had written which, and why?

"Xiao-hua, do you have a partner?" asked my husband.

"No, just Ming-ming, and he’s little." She then stole a glance at my little brother, unattached and about twenty-nine years old. He’s a good looking man, clean-cut, an easy-going professional. We’d never found a suitable match for him, or maybe now...?

Xiao-hua turned a pair of big eyes and a smile directly on my brother. His jaw dropped. He stopped talking. He never stops talking. Who was this Xiao-hua? Was she real?

"Ming-ming needs to go." said Gramma with some urgency. I whisked him up and held him over the toilet just in time. Ming-ming was real enough, in all respects. After carefully washing, we toddled back to the table.

Conversation now flowed in torrent5s between brother and Xiao-hua. I’d never seen him interested like this. She’s bright, beautiful, and the only creature on earth who can stop him talking with her smile. Interesting indeed.

Su-lan sensed that she was sitting in the way, so she moved, allowing Xiao-hua to sit next to her admirer, and admire her he did.

A fine meal was had by all, though Ming-ming’s enthusiasm was not yet matched by accuracy; most of his meal seemed to be liberally appled to his restaurant bib and the surrounding carpet.

Granddad insisted on paying; Chinese rarely split a dinner check. -And yes, Xiao-hua now had Ming-ming on her hip, and Liuzhou on her other arm. More and more interesting, the threesome slipped away in the same taxi. They looked like an instant family, so happy. What will happen next?

The events of the dinner table had me so curious that the next evening I called my brother.

"How’s it going?" I asked, really hoping for good news.

"What’s going?"

"Xiao-hua and Ming-ming?" I pressed on.

"I don’t know. We got in the taxi, and we’d gotten about as far as South Street Seaport on the FDR when we went under some sort of overpass, and when we came out, they were gone."

"You mean they got out of a moving cab?" I asked.

"No, just as I said, they were there beside me on the back seat of the cab, as real as ever, and then were simply just not there." He seemed upset by the experience. I remembered the strange way we had made the aquaintance of the beautiful Xiao-hua and Ming-ming, and tried to assure him that maybe it was all for the best.

Perhaps the way people come into our lives and appear in our minds is partly our imagination -wishes, hopes, expectations and partly a tangible physical reality which has no spritual connection. Xiao-hua and Ming-ming had made a real spiritual connection, and for an evening had entertained us and delighted my brother, showing him how it felt to have a complete life -and now what to do about it. Not so bad after all!