Our Ayis

Jon and Gabbie have got a house that make you ache with desire. And they throw fabulous BBQ parties as long as Beijing begins its spring thaw. Fredrik has been calling them my "BBQ friends" as to emphasize how yummy their food was, especially Jon's BBQ sauce, exoticly stimulating to the tongues.

Their assistant and Ayi, a twenty-five year old from a small town, but already mothering her child. She's a tad cute when she scrutinized with two big, winking eyes, a pair of beautiful eyes that give both wonders and shyness. Jonathon refuses to call her Ayi, as the original purpose to hire xiao luo (her name) was to help him with the screen talks. And she also helps clean the house when there's not much talks to do. She grew fast, and kept changing her hair style as a proof of being among movie-stars and hip fashionists. Did she just dye it into a flaming color last time I saw her? Did Jon just tell us that she's divorcing her hubby? Well good girl.

Now that I have had an Ayi of my own, an Ayi who speaks rather loud in her southern accent. She's even louder when I shook my head not able to understand her accent, and she urged me to water the plants no more with funny seriousness on her face. On the first day she came to clean the apartment, I was cooking chicken soup and she immediately furrowed at my masterpiece: "Is this the way you cook chicken? The color shouldn't have been so dark and oily!" But I love her. And she's honest and bizarre, and quite smart in reading my mind.

I also have a Taiwanese girl friend, who put one hundred kuai in the drawer to test her Ayi. Of course the Ayi didn't foolishly mistook the money as some toilet paper which she could randomly wrap in her pocket, so for sure the next day the Ayi was awarded with my girl friend's apartment key.