Friday, December 31, 2010

Chinese People Really Know How to Eat

Last night I was having dinner in a restaurant, with just my book for company, and a Taiwanese family sat down next to me. Two girls, about 15 and 9, a boy about 12, Mommy in charge, and a chubby, easygoing Dad. Although Mommy was about 40, she was slim and fit, fashionably dressed in designer clothes and accessories, and she had beautiful milk-white skin that matched her blackened teeth. She did all the ordering, even though she was struggling with the English, while her older girl and boy were facebooking, in English, on their phones.

Slowly but surely, the plates of food started coming. After the arrival of the first plate, Mommy pulled the family into a circle, they grasped each other’s hands, closed their eyes, and said a long and serious Christian prayer. Then Daddy jumped into the first plates while the kids were still facebooking. More and more plates kept coming -- curries, stews, soups, varieties of rice, some very Asian meat and kale swimming in gooey sauce on flat noodles, etc. Mommy distributed the food, putting bits and pieces on each kid’s plate. Then one incongruous plate showed up -- a mountain of Nachos, piled high with beef, cheese and sour cream.

“No way,” I thought to myself -- “no way that family can eat all that food!”

At first the boy resisted Mommy’s portions, but eventually, after giving his status update and uploading a photo of the meal, he dug into rice, curries and omelet, and was soon stuffing himself like everybody else.

“Wow!” I thought to myself, “Chinese people really know how to eat!”

But still that mountain of Nachos remained unmolested at the center of the table! Finally, after all other plates were vanquished, the boy started picking at the Nachos. He was after chips with only cheese. Then Mommy started picking away, she was looking for chips that were not soggy -- perhaps that’s how she keeps her figure. Finally, as Mommy was paying the bill with her credit card, chubby Dad picked up a spoon a scooped the remaining half a plate of nachos into the void.

“Wow!” I thought to myself, “Chinese people really know how to eat!”

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