'I will bring you 1000 customers'

Around 2014, a Chinese lady came to eat at our restaurant, the Oneness-Fountain-Heart. Our restaurant was located quite close to Flushing, which has a large Chinese population, but until that time we had not had that many Chinese customers. She came a second and third time and then she said to me: “I like your restaurant, I like your food, I will bring you 1000 customers!” I smiled and thanked her and thought, well let us see how much of this will materialize…

It happened that this lady was part of a Buddhist group in Flushing. She started to bring their friends who were all vegetarians, and then their friends started to bring their friends and so on… The percentage of Chinese customers steadily increased in our restaurant and they were all very friendly and spiritual people. Sometimes I joked with her when she came and said: “Ok, now we are at 365, or yes, we are getting close to 500. I am sure that in the end she brought these 1000 customers and it was simply an amazing experience.

Five or six times we had large parties with them of up to 35 or 40 people. All Chinese Buddhists, sometimes they also brought some monks in their dark red robes. I asked already at the first party if we should sing some of the songs that Sri Chinmoy composed in honour of the Lord Buddha and they enthusiastically agreed. So we brought some extra singers (one time even Paree’s group came) and each time we sang 4-5 Buddha songs and it was a real experience! They were filming, some crying, many with folded hands and for us it was always a very uplifting occasion.

PS. They were also very good eaters (including the monks) and always ordered a lot. Then they shared all the dishes among themselves.