The All Americans Slurp

The All-American Slurp

by Lensey Namioka

People

in

different

places

have

different

lifestyles

and

eating

habits.

Ignorance

of

the

differences

may

sometimes

lead

to

cultural

shocks.

Read

the

following

story

and

see

how

the

author

feels

towards

her

own

culture and that of the West even over trivial matters such as table manners.

The

first time our

family was

invited out

to dinner

in America, we disgraced ourselves while eating celery.

We

had

immigrated

to

this

country

from

China,

and

during

our

early

days

here

we

had

a

hard

time

with

American table manners.

In

China

we

never

ate

celery

raw,

or

any

other

kind

of

vegetable

raw.

We

always

had

to

disinfect

the

vegetables

in boiling

water

first.

When we

were presented

with our

first relish tray, the raw

celery caught

us

unprepared.

We had been

invited to dinner by our neighbors, the Gleasons.

After arriving at the

house, we shook

hands

with our hosts and packed ourselves

into a sofa.

As our

family of

four sat stiffly

in a

row,

my

younger brother

and I stole glances at our parents for a clue as to what to do next.

Mrs. Gleason offered the relish tray to mother. The tray looked pretty, with its tiny red radishes, curly sticks

of carrots, and

long, slender stalks of pale

green celery.

try

some of

the celery, Mrs.

Lin,

from a local farmer, and it's sweet.

Mother picked up one of the green stalks, and Father followed suit.

Then I picked up a stalk, and my brother

did too. So there we sat, each with a stalk of celery in our right hand.

Mrs. Gleason kept smiling.

It's my own recipe: sour cream

and onion flakes, with a dash of Tabasco sauce.

Most Chinese don't care

for dairy products, and

in those days I wasn't even ready to drink

fresh

milk.

Sour

cream sounded perfectly revolting.

Our family shook our head in unison.

Mrs.

Gleason

went

off

with

the

relish

tray

to

the

other

guests,

and

we

carefully

watched

to

see

what

they

did.

Everyone seems to eat the raw vegetables quiet happily.

Mother took a bite of her celery.

Crunch.

she whispered.

Father took a bite of his celery.

Crunch.

I took a bite, and then

my brother.

Crunch, crunch.

It was

more than

good;

it was delicious.

Raw celery

has a slight a sparkle, a zingy taste that you don't get in cooked celery.

When Mrs. Gleason came around with

the relish tray, we each took another stalk of celery, except my brother.

He took two.

There was only one problem: long strings ran through the length of the stalk, and they got caught in my teeth.

When I help my mother in the kitchen, I always pull the strings out before slicing celery.

I

pulled

the

strings

out

of

my

stalk.

Z-z- zip

,

z-z-zip

.

My

brother

followed

suit.

Z-z-zip

,

z-z- zip

,

z-z-zip

.

To my left, my parents were taking care of their own stalks.

Z-z- zip

,

z-z-zip

,

z-z-zip

.

Suddenly I realized that there was dead silence except

for our

zipping.

Looking

up, I saw that

the eyes of

everyone in the room were on our family.

Mr. and Mrs. Gleason, their daughter Meg, who was my friend, and

their neighbors the Badels

–

they were all staring at us as we busily pulled the strings of our celery.

That wasn't the end of it.

Mrs. Gleason announced that dinner was served and invited us to the dining table.

It was

lavishly covered

with platters of

food, but

we couldn't see any

chairs around

the table. So

we

helpfully

carried over some dining chairs and sat down.

All the other guests just stood there.

Mrs. Gleason bent down and whispered to

us,

is

a buffet dinner.

You

help

yourselves to some

food

and eat it in the living room.

Our

family beat a

retreat back to

the sofa as

if chased by enemy

soldiers.

For the rest of

the evening,

too

mortified to go back to the dining table, I nursed a bit of potato salad on my plate.

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Next day Meg and

I

got on the school bus

together.

I wasn't

sure

how

she

would

feel about

me after the

spectacle our

family

made at the party. But she was just the same as

usual, and the only

reference she

made to

the party was,

never

tries

to

figure

out

how

much

food

to

prepare.

She

just

puts

everything

on

the

table

and

hopes

for

the

best.

I began to

relax.

The

Gleasons' dinner party

wasn't so different

from a Chinese

meal after all.

My

mother

also puts everything on the table and hopes for the best.

Meg

was the

first

friend I had

made after we came to America. I eventually

got acquainted with a

few other

kids in school, but Meg was still the only real friend I had.

My

brother

didn't

have

any

problems

making

friends.

He

spent

all

his

time

with

some

boys

who

were

teaching him baseball, and in no time he could speak English much faster than I could

－

not better, but faster.

I

worried

more

about

making

mistakes,

and

I

spoke

carefully,

making

sure

I

could

say

everything

right

before

opening

my

mouth.

At

least

I

had

a

better

accent

than

my

parents,

who

never

really

got

rid

of

their

Chinese accent, even years later. My parents had both studied English in school before coming to America, but

what they had studied was mostly written English, not spoken.

Father's approach to

English

was a scientific one. Since Chinese

verbs

have

no tense,

he was

fascinated by

the

way

English

verbs

changed

form

according

to

whether

they

were

in

the

present,

past

imperfect,

perfect,

pluperfect, future, or future perfect tense. He was always making diagrams of verbs and their inflections, and he

looked for opportunities to show off his mastery of the pluperfect and future perfect tenses, his two favorites.

shall have finished my project by Monday,

Mother's

approach

was

to

memorize

lists

of

polite

phrases

that

would

cover

all

possible

social

situations.

She

was

constantly

muttering

things

like

fine,

thank

you.

And

you?

Once

she

accidentally

stepped

on

someone's

foot, and

hurriedly blurted,

that's quite all right!

Embarrassed by

her slip, she

resolved to do

better next time. So when someone stepped on her foot, she cried,

In our own different ways , we made progress in learning English.

The

day

came

when

my

parents

announced

that

they

wanted

to

give

a

dinner

party.

We

had

invited

Chinese

friends

to eat with

us before, but this dinner was going

to be different. In addition, we were

going to

invite the

Gleasons.

That was a relief. Mother was a

good

cook, but I

wasn't sure

if people who ate

sour cream

would also eat

chicken gizzards stewed in soy sauce.

Mother decided

not to take a chance with chicken

gizzards.

Since we

had western

guests, she set the table

with large dinner plates, which we never used in Chinese meals. In fact we didn't use individual plates at all, but

picked up

food

from

the

platters

in the

middle of the table and brought

it directly to our rice bowls. Following

the practice of Chinese- American restaurants, Mother also placed large serving spoons on the platters.

The

dinner

started

well.

Mrs.

Gleason

exclaimed

at

the

beautifully

arranged

dishes

of

food:

the

colorful

candied

fruit

in the sweet-and-sour pork dish, the

noodle-thin shreds of

chicken

meat

stir-fried with

tiny peas,

and the glistening pink prawns in a ginger sauce.

At

first I

was

too busy enjoying

my

food to

notice

how the

guests were doing.

But

soon I remembered

my

duties. Sometimes guests were too polite to help themselves and you had to serve them with more food.

I glanced at Meg, to see if she needed more food, and my eyes nearly popped out at the sight of her plate. It

was piled with

food:

the sweet-and-sour

meat pushed right against

the

chicken shreds, and the chicken

sauce

ran

into

the prawns.

She

had been

taking

food

from a second dish before she

finished eating

her

helping from

the first!

Horrified, I turned

to

look at Mr. Gleason. He

was chasing

a pea around

his plate. Several times

he

got

it to

the edge, but when

he tried to pick

it

up with his chopsticks,

it rolled back toward the center of the plate

again.

Finally he put down his chopsticks and picked up the pea with his fingers. He really did! A grown man!

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