Bath House or Restaurant?

A week into our first experience of China we began to get a better idea of our new home away from home.  As we wandered, always carrying a a camera of course, we continued to discover more and more of the outer appearances, the “face” of China that is projected, not so much for outsiders such as us, but for those who called the city and the country their home.

The building detail above was seen on a large building, perhaps three stories tall.  The building’s front doors was flanked by two large statues of elephants draped with ribbon as well as a few doormen in some sort of uniform.  Since the doors were open, we peeked inside and saw a large statue of Buddha with a shrine of offerings in front of it.  We ventured further in when we saw women wearing traditional Chinese dress standing by the opening to a dining area.  Walking into the dining area we both believed we were in an upscale restaurant.  This had to be where the rich and famous came when they wanted to impress when dining.

When I showed our hosts these photos as well as others of our walking journeys of discovery, they laughed.  Apparently this wasn’t an upscale restaurant, but a bath house, something we would have known had we been able to read Chinese.  Now, you have an idea of why I am working on learning more of the language “before” returning for a third year in Changzhou, China.  Now, if I want to find a restaurant, I will look for these Chinese characters 饭店 (fàndiàn).   Imagine my surprise when I did some more research and found out that there were many different expressions for restaurant.  Oh well, at least with this one expression, you can be sure you won’t starve in China.