"justa wai fo minute"

Our next adventure was to go the big electronic store down on the corner - may be a cross between Best Buy and Sears. They have everything, but we were looking for an s-video cable (again) because Will forget his in Michigan. This is so we can watch American TV through our computer. ANYWAY... you know the comment I made about - oh everyone is so nice, no racism, etc... Well, we only had to wait a day. We walk into the store and of course people just watched us (weird feeling to be watched with that many eyes). One person who spole a little English pointed us to the 2nd floor. We go up there and find what we are looking for. You can't just pull it off the hook yourself, you have to have them go get it for you (a la Fry's, etc). So we are pointing and the two guys are talking back in Mandarin knowing full well we don't understand. I mean, how difficult is it to understand pointing at the damn thing and holding up one finger (the nice one finger I might add). Instead they proceed to "talk amonst themselves," shake their head no, ask a few more questions in mandarin. Will and I are chuckling at this point knowing that they are probably saying "you stupid americans," or worse....We had a small congregation around us by this point, but I think one of their bosses came by and miraculously they said (still in Chinese) that they understood what we wanted. We got it, we paid for it (they didn't overcharge). Then the one guy went off to go get it. We started to follow, but then the other guy - IN ENGLISH - states wait here four minutes. I gave a big smile and said "I had a feeling you knew English." It wasn't great, but it was still good enough to have a mini-conversation. He asked how many years we have been in Shanghai. I told him ONE DAY! He said, "Welcome to Shanghai!" Oh we laughed for hours about that one.