Table Manners

I had lunch at a Thai place in the food court at the mall the other day. It was busy in there. I took my tray to a big table just in front of the Thai counter and sat down to eat. A moment later, a Chinese guy sat down next to me with his big metal bowl of noodle soup, and a few minutes after that, another Chinese guy and the woman who had served me at the Thai place also sat down with their lunches. They were all food court employees - the two guys were evidently from the Chinese place two stalls down.

I'm pretty good with chopsticks, but if you use them Western-style, they are not very efficient for picking up food that's way down there on your plate, and then brought all the way up to your mouth. It's hard to do this without dropping things, and it's definitely hard to eat in a hurry this way. So I kind of admired the way these three employees got right into it Asian-style: face down into the bowl, using the chopticks to essentially shovel the noodles into their mouths. They were going at it at top speed, chattering away in Chinese as they slurped.

Listening to them yammer and slurp, I though, why not? When in Rome, right? I bent my head over my styrofoam plate, grasped the side of it, lifted it a few inches off the tray, and began shovelling. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the Chinese guys. He had just a bare twitch of amusement in the corner of his mouth. I carried on scarfing my noodles. The three carried on yakking.

Suddenly, a bit of peanut went down the wrong way and I started to sputter and choke. Tears came to my eyes. I guzzled some water. I was snorting and coughing. My Chinese tablemates seemed to fall silent. Finally, I got control of myself. I cleared my throat and put the plate down. As I did so, the Chinese guy caught my eye.

"You shouldn't eat so fast," he said. "You chould choke."