Thoughts on blending in...
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Feb. 19th, 2008 | 12:06 am
When I was in Japan back in December a business partner marveled that I could eat with chop sticks. His son it seems has rejected them.
Today was the third time I've been asked if I have lived in India before.
Why? I eat the food like a native, and know how to order what I want to eat.
The secret?
When I was 15 I got into a kick of just eating with chop sticks. When traveling I would carry them with me since I found them easier to deal with then silverware.
When I was 18 I first ate Indian food with a family that had just moved to the states. They made a point of showing me how to eat it properly with bread (to this day I pretty much never pick up silverware when eating Indian). I do not though have the cupped finger trick for soup down pat :)
Its funny how people pick up on eating habits. I always thought it was important to experience food in the way it was originally served. Adds to the experience :)
I cannot though pronounce all of the different types of food I have eaten. I know some basics so I know what is in what I am eating.
Final thought... you have never had Masala Chai until you buy it off a guy on the corner who grinds the spices himself. The stuff served in hotels come from powder, and it is quite weak compared to what the original tastes like.
Today was the third time I've been asked if I have lived in India before.
Why? I eat the food like a native, and know how to order what I want to eat.
The secret?
When I was 15 I got into a kick of just eating with chop sticks. When traveling I would carry them with me since I found them easier to deal with then silverware.
When I was 18 I first ate Indian food with a family that had just moved to the states. They made a point of showing me how to eat it properly with bread (to this day I pretty much never pick up silverware when eating Indian). I do not though have the cupped finger trick for soup down pat :)
Its funny how people pick up on eating habits. I always thought it was important to experience food in the way it was originally served. Adds to the experience :)
I cannot though pronounce all of the different types of food I have eaten. I know some basics so I know what is in what I am eating.
Final thought... you have never had Masala Chai until you buy it off a guy on the corner who grinds the spices himself. The stuff served in hotels come from powder, and it is quite weak compared to what the original tastes like.
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from:
singingnettle
date: Feb. 19th, 2008 09:33 am (UTC)
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from:
krow
date: Feb. 19th, 2008 12:08 pm (UTC)
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from:
kytty
date: Feb. 19th, 2008 02:23 pm (UTC)
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from:
suddenlynaked
date: Feb. 19th, 2008 07:17 pm (UTC)
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from:
krow
date: Feb. 19th, 2008 07:26 pm (UTC)
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Imagine sitting cars in massive traffic jams where car after car has this sort of music coming from them...
It is almost as cool as the sound made by the gypsy caravans in the North. They have these big trucks that are all dressed up in streamers. The horns are just... different.
I can't decide if this country is repressed, or if I am from such a repressed culture that I can't really follow an environment that has a very smooth and possibly non-obvious flare to it.
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from:
zanfur
date: Feb. 19th, 2008 08:16 pm (UTC)
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from:
robbat2
date: Feb. 19th, 2008 08:29 pm (UTC)
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Funny story with the chopstick usage, one more than one occasion, there have been elder folk that complemented me on said usage with their children or grandchildren translating for them.
The funniest one of which was me eating at a tiny Pho place close to my university, that very seldom had any white faces at all, and a grandmother+granddaughter pair, while walking out, stopped next to me, and the conversation was translated thusly:
Gran: You use chopsticks so well! You should marry my granddaughter!
(the granddaugther spluttered in saying this, quite aghast).
I told them I was taken however.
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