Cowboy Chicken

The short story “After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town” was about the inter-workings of a fast food restaurant in China. The restaurant served typical Southern American fare and had a lot of ups and downs throughout the story. At times the restaurant was doing great business but at other times they were on the verge of struggling. The boss of the establishment was a tyrant named Mr. Shapiro who was an American that spoke no Chinese and had to converse through the manager Peter, who knew both languages.

            I really enjoyed this work because it was very relatable. I’ve spent the last five years working at a restaurant in my small town and understand the woes of the restaurant business. Also, like the workers in this story, I was bossed around by a tyrant myself. The restaurant I worked at had two owners, one of which worked the day time and one worked the night time. Since I was in high school, I worked the night time and got stuck being ruled by the worse of the two bosses. We had many quarrels over some of the same things Mr. Shapiro got mad about, specifically eating the restaurant’s food.  The quote that stated “I hid my glass and plate in a cabinet so that our boss couldn’t see them.” (page 201-202) sounded exactly like something I have done in the past to hid my eating on the clock. Also, even though Manyou is not a manager or boss, he did something that my own boss would have also done. Manyou said “I’m going to give your fly a hot bath to see if it is from our place.” (page 208). He was eager to prove the customer wrong and this is something my own boss would try to do. I laughed reading about how they felt the American way was to always let the customer be right because in my own experience I have not seen this in action. Actually, I am told that the customer is often times wrong!

            All in all, I really enjoyed this story and found it to be an easy read. They were not many difficult words that I did not know and the story flowed really smoothly.