When I went to his house for the first lesson, he kindly offered me a banana. While it was a large, rip, fine specimen, I do not especially like bananas. I was able to communicate this with only moderate difficulty.

Mr. Wu disappeared and came back with a grapefruit. As I thought it would be rude to refuse a second offering, I accepted it and asked for a knife. Mr. Wu rummaged in his kitchen and brought me a large knife -- like large enough to cut up a person for example. After halving my grapefruit on his newspaper-covered card table, I realized I needed a spoon. Mr. Wu obliged with a spoon that would be more properly used as a soup ladle . . . as well as being crud-encrusted and dripping wet. I didn't want to be rude so I clumsily sectioned and ate the grapefruit.

There was still a lot of juice and pulp left, so I requested a glass. Mr. Wu ran water and six ounces of generic dish detergent over a glass and gave it to me. My first sip of sudsy grapefruit juice was quite vile, so I wrapped my hand around the bottom of the glass, pretended to finish the juice, and rinsed the glass out.