Scene: the café on campus, which sells laundry tickets, cookies, cigarettes, snacks, and coffee out of a Nescafe machine.
Melanie: (enters the door during a break between class) Hello! Do you have a cup of coffee with milk?
Shop clerk: Yes, we have it. (pushes the button on the Nescafe machine, waits for the coffee to emerge, and hands it to Melanie.)
Melanie: (takes a sip, and slips the clerk the 50 cents to pay for it.) Thank you. Do you have sugar?
Shop clerk: No, we don’t have sugar. But there is another drink that has sugar in it (points to a button in a column of buttons on the drink machine.)
Melanie: Oh? (points to the same button in the column.) How do you say that drink in Chinese?
Shop clerk: “the first one.”
Melanie: (pauses to ponder this answer. smiles.) Thank you. Good bye!
Shop clerk: (smiles.) Good bye!
* I originally called this post "a typical Chinese conversation," but "typical" is probably too strong a word. Conversations like this don't comprise a majority of those that we have with locals, but they do happen fairly often. So maybe I'll stick with "occasional." :)