#39 McD's Suzhou

After Church today we decided to check out the McDonalds on "Walking Street", also known as "Guan Dian Jie" in downtown Suzhou. Pictured above we see Joseph outside Suzhou's Mickey Dee's and a scene of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd at the McDonalds service counter. We got six happy meals (best I could communicate) and ate on the balcony where we found the only free table to accomodate six people.

After lunch, Kathleen went alone to make a quick purchase while I took the kids to the McDonalds ice cream window for soft serve cones. It was shortly after this that today's China-unique experience took place. I had the kids sit down on a bench to eat their ice cream and the novelty of four western children eating ice cream was too much for the curious Chinese to resist. It started with a couple of shy girls taking a picture from 20 yards away but soon became a group of 50 (no exaggeration) gawking people staring, touching, and taking pictures of me and the children on this park bench. The last picture above captures an early stage of the scene. Shortly after this, I became concerned about the kids as the crowd was getting too demanding with the photo-taking.

How strange to be gawked at like an animal in the zoo ! We are treated like celebrities and I think we probably will soon find the attention as unwelcome as movie stars do.