Moshe Plotnik's Chinese Laundry

[DD]

Walking through San Francisco's Chinatown, a tourist from the Midwest
was fascinated with all the Chinese restaurants, shops, signs, and
banners. He turned a corner and saw a building with the sign, "Moshe
Plotnik's Chinese Laundry."

"Moshe Plotnik?" he wondered. "How does that fit in Chinatown?"

He walked into the shop and saw a fairly standard looking Chinese
laundry.

He could see the proprietors were clearly aware of the uniqueness of
the name as there were baseball hats, T-shirts and coffee mugs
sporting the logo, "Moshe Plotnik's Chinese laundry."

There was also a fair selection of Chinatown souvenirs, indicating
that the name alone had brought many tourists into the shop. The tourist
selected a coffee cup as a conversation piece to take back to his
office. Behind the counter was a smiling old Chinese gentleman who
thanked him for the purchase.

The tourist asked, "Can you tell me how this place got a name like
"Moshe Plotnik's Chinese laundry?"

The old man answered, "Oh, everybody asks me that. It's the name of
the owner."

Looking around, the tourist asked, "Is he here now?"

"He is right here," replied the old man. "He is me."

"Really? You're Chinese. How did you ever get a name like Moshe
Plotnik?"

"It is simple," said the old man. "Many, many years ago when I came
to this country, I was standing in line at the documentation center. The
man in front of me was a Jewish gentleman from Poland. The lady at
the counter looked at him and said, "What is your name?"

He said, "Moshe Plotnik."

Then she looked at me and said, "What is your name?"

I said, "Sam Ting."