Cultural Connection

When my dad and I used to go shopping and would end up in, say, a Mexican grocery, my dad felt totally comfortable struggling through is Spanish with the people there. I was always to embarassed to mess up. And in other cultural settings I always feel shy because I feel I'm invading personal territory.

Well, today I went to an Asian Market to find out how to get dried black mushrooms. In the county in which I live I tend to see Jews with Jews, African Americans with African Americans and so on. Maybe I've gotten tired of always being with the same bunch. In any case, I really enjoyed being in this Asian market and it didn't bother me too much that I was, I think, the only non-Asian there.

(My chiropractor, too, actually has almost only African-American patients when I'm there. I like the experience of being in that setting.)

So today when I went to the checkout line I had to ask if the stuff I had bought was what I thought it was (the mushrooms said "Black fungi,") and the person bagging my groceries gestured that she liked the chopsticks I was buying. She didn't speak any English at all. The cashier than asked if I knew how to use them. So we opened them up and she laughed at me as I held them incorrectly and dropped the piece of paper I tried to pick up. She coached me a little but mainly just laughed.

I laughed too. It was very funny and I wasn't really embarassed at all.