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11/17/2007: "Shokku!"

mood: Amused

Had two amusing culture shocks in a row today with Ga Mok and Dee Mok.

First was when we were eating strawberries for dessert. I got the shock of my life because I'd always assumed that the only way to eat strawberries was either plain or with sugar or with whipped cream or even a combination of both. So I was all SHOCK!HORROR!OMGICAN'TBELIEVETHIS! when Dee Mok grabbed our bottle of salt to season her strawberries with! D: And if that wasn't shocking enough for me, Ga Mok told me that she eats her strawberries with sugar, fish sauce and chilli powder, and then proceeded to do so right in front of me. XD

Not that I think there's anything wrong with that, since they were also surprised to find that I actually eat my strawberries with sugar. I just find it really amusing how even between South-East Asian States, which are often so similar in many ways, you can still have enough differences to have a culture shock. Previously I'd always thought of culture shocks as being more of a Western-Asian collide sort of thing. :p (And as an aside, Ga Mok threw a small fit when I refused to try her sugar-fishsauce-chillipowder concoction. To semi-quote, "You see! Dee and I love this sauce so much that we want to share it with you!" Oh Ga Mok, I know you love me. XD)

The second one may not be so much of a culture shock as it is perhaps just my own family thing - but basically what happened was that I had some mini-pastries placed on a blue napkin which was lying on the table, and Dee was reminding me to eat them... and then she casually plucked one of the pastries off the napkin and held it right in front of my face asking "What's this one?". At which point I semi-freaked out at her because she was touching my food which she wasn't planning on eating, and that came as a shock to me since that just isn't a done thing in my family back home.

Oddly enough, I have no problems with people handing me bits of food to eat (eg. if you were to break off a piece of your sandwich and give it to me, I'd eat it), but when someone picks something off a plate and then puts it back on again, I can't stand it - perhaps it's because I was brought up to think it impolite to touch food that's not yours and that once you touch something on a plate with your bare hands you have to eat it. In any case, it was actually quite amusing since Dee Mok and Ga Mok were quite surprised at my vehement reaction. XD I suppose it ended up being indirect payback for the shock they gave me for the strawberries thing. *laughs*