There was a time in your life when chinese food was a rare treat - it was a once-a-month or -two-month meal bought for the family when your mother got paid, and was the conclusion to a day which would start with her taking her finished work - kites - to the store that sold them and then go on to see the money earned go on rent and a month's shopping. Being vegetarian then it was usually rice, chips, prawn balls (of which you only ate the batter) and noodles, but it was still a treat.
Many years later you worked in a chinese restaurant at weekends, for £30 and two free meals, by which time your metabolism had adjusted to eating meat and opened a whole new world for you. One you regret occasionally because your system still gets touchy about particular meats, but nevermind. On one day you heard about a female customer who constantly whinged about how common and provincial she thought chinese food was, and it made you angry.
She had no realisation that not 20 foot away from her and out of sight was a person who would have totally disagreed with her and explained why. Living in London was expensive - it was why your family moved to Norwich in the end - and that meant frugal living. A life she had clearly never experienced by the sound of things.
Today you got paid, and decided to have chinese food for dinner, and considering some of the pay was from overtime I think you earned it.
And today you discovered Duck Fried Rice.
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