Culture Shock I: Food

After half a day at the site office, our office driver Kumar was kind enough to pick me up and take me back to our main office. But since it’s lunchtime, he decided we head over to this nice Indian restaurant he frequents to have a munch at a typical Indian lunch food. After all, food transcends all linguistic and geographical boundaries. Or so I thought.

We ordered something called a “tally”, which is an everything-on-it course. The meal includes 6 dishes, all of vegetarian base.

Above, counter-clockwise:

• Potatoes with chopped chili and curry
• Curry soup with zuchinni
• Sauteed mongo in curry
• Kura kuzhambu - red soupy thingamajigie. With curry!
• Rasam - sour soup similar to our sinigang, but with (surprise! surprise!) CURRY!
  
• Payasam - milk curd with parsley, also spicy
  
• White yogurt - dessert, which was the only item in the entrée that is not spicy. No, wait a second - IT GODDAMN IS!

While I held my breath as I was chomping away, I noticed my Indian friend devour his entire plate with much gusto. To my surprise, a smear of red paste was the source of his delight.

So I opted to try it myself. What you don’t know won’t hurt you right? WRONG!

So yeah, I suffered from third-degree burn and the feeling of being punished by the three major Hindu Gods. But I enjoyed lunch nonetheless. Free lunch is always nice.

Living in another country may put one in a situation wherein he needs to face a new culture with either of two simple attitudes. The first consists of understanding and acceptance. The second is rejection and throwing up your entire lunch and hailing a cab to the nearest McDonald’s.