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There are plenty of Chinese textbooks that claim to teach basic Chinese but are in fact utterly useless

in everyday situations like the one we found ourselves in about a month ago, when our new colleague

Nicole arrived back from lunch slightly the worse for the wear....

Nicole had just crossed the threshold and was bending over to take off her shoes when Echo, having

successfully maneuvered herself behind the coffee table, finally broke the ice. "Did you have a good

lunch," she asked? "Oh lunch," Nicole faltered. "I almost forgot all about that in the excitement...."