Illiterate

I remember that I'm foreign when I go to a restaurant without an English menu. There's a horrible feeling of helplessnes when I know that there must be better dishes available than the ones I can say or point to.

Sometimes I remind myself of a teaching tutorial where we discussed survival strategies of illiterate people. I tend to frequent the same couple of small restaurants where the staff know what I want without having to ask. Pictures on the walls or food on display make life much easier.

I tell myself that I would have learnt to read by now if Cantonese had a phonetic script.