I am not one for chasing and catching chooks. I have no experience in the field at all. All the chickens I have cooked for dinner come frozen from a deep freeze and ready plucked at that! But I was up to clapping my hands and steering the chook back in the direction of the lady. I hovered back and forth at the edge of the road clapping and flapping and keeping the poor thing from become a drive thru corpse!

The neighbourhood had all come out to see this mad foreign woman clapping and dancing on the edge of the road; the chicken panicked and prancing and the poor Chinese lady huffing and flustered, with the other chook tucked firmly under her arm. I was successful at keeping the chook off the road, however it darted straight into an open door nearby – a restaurant where people had just sat down to tea. They all jumped up and the chook started flying from table to table and finally out the door. The mechanic from the shop next door, the security guard from the bank, the waitress from the restaurant and the poor Chinese lady chased and cornered the chook and managed to capture it.

Meanwhile I gathered the boxes back together thinking that she would need them to put the chooks back in. The people in the neighbourhood were looking at me quite suspiciously – I think they thought I was going to light off with the boxes. So I waited and watched till everyone had calmed down, meanwhile tidying the boxes and getting them ready to become chicken prisons again.

The poor Chinese lady had gathered her dignity and with a chook under each arm she managed to mount the bicycle and stuff them into one box. She left the other box on the ground where I had put it. She must have said “Xie Xie” (Thank you) about 20 times in a few minutes as she rode the bike out onto the road and off to home. A few minutes later you would never have known – all had returned to normal, except for the giggling laowai woman, strolling up the road with happy tears rolling down her face. It is so much fun living in China!