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Q: When was the last time, unknowingly, "you got it all wrong?"
I have made my fair share of mistakes here, no question about that. Live and learn I guess. Anyways, I am curious if any of you have similar experiences of messing up or reading a situation totally backwards.
* Last week I was at my wife's cousin's home having a few beers and dinner. He kept offering the beers and of course, I kept accepting. We polished off quite a few until it was time to head out. The following day I was told that I was rude to drink so many as the guy didn't drink beer often and he was very hungover the following day. His wife was pissed at him as well. I was told that the others were talking about the fact that I should've turned down his offers after two or three. At the time nobody said anything to me. I believed I was doing the right thing all along and that he was happy to be drinking so many.
* I held a small get together for some Chinese friends upon arriving here years ago. I set up what I thought was a cool spread including beer on ice, bowls of chips and dip, chicken wings, veggie platter, cheese and meat trays...you get the idea. They wouldn't touch the cheese, wouldn't eat the veggies with their hands, didn't like the ice cold beer, tried to eat the chips and wings with chopsticks. Needless to say it didn't have the desired effect.
I could go on here but.....
Would love to hear your stories.
Most of my experiences have been with culinary failures, up to the point that I do not do them anymore. When Chinese friends visit my GF and me, they have been trained to do the cooking here, and I provide the ingredients and sit back and enjoy the show.
My worst experience was making a seafood "paella" (a dish from Spain basically yellow rice with many different types of seafood), and a vanila custard for dessert. The custard was deemed "too sweet" eventhough it had no sugar in it, just condensed milk, evaporated milk, egg yokes and vanila extract. And the "paella" was labeled "too salty", and I do not cook with salt at all, the other condiments used (onions, peppers, garlic, etc) were the ones suppling the flavor. I am not kidding, I put in over 10 hours getting everything ready for the "paella" even made a fish soup just to use the fish flavored water to cook the rice for the paella. Just to have one Lady declaring she had a cold and could not eat, and the rest just taking a few bites and doing a lot of talking in Chinese. I was so pissed that from that day on I do refuse any requests to cook "foreign" food.
MissA:
Too salty!? In a country that sells soy sauce in five litre jugs?
MrTibbles:
Similar experiences here. From what I can tell: A.) If it's not Chinese food, it's crap, simply because if it was any good to eat, the Chinese would have invented it 5000 years ago. B.) Foreigners can never understand the complexities of chopping up stuff so it's really small then cooking the crap out of it and dumping it over rice or noodles. C.) Most foreign food was actually invented in China and is just a poor copy (baozi = hamburger, any Italian dish = "noodles", etc.) - unless you are trying to impress someone and show face at a very expensive foreign restaurant, but then this is only for the cost and experience. It shows that you are wealthy enough to pay a lot for "bad food". D.) Boiling, steaming, or wok-frying are the ONLY options for making food. If you don't use those methods, you don't know how to cook. E.) Anything that takes longer than 10 minutes to make is stupid. People here will always ALWAYS complain about foreign food because it's not Chinese. Honestly, you may have made the most perfect and most delicious dish in the history of the world and a Chinese person will complain about it because A.) it's not "Chinese" or "Chinese style" and B.) if a Chinese person didn't make it, there is no way they will put you on par with a Chinese person in that field. It is impossible for a laowai to do something as culturally significant as master Chinese food. Even if you have. It's a national pride/face issue. Because it is not Chinese food, even if it is the best thing they've ever tasted, they will, nay MUST, shoot it down to some degree. Hint: If you ever get duped into cooking again, before people start to eat, criticize yourself a lot. And I mean A LOT. Great BS lines are: "I know this isn't as good as (insert common Chinese food), but this is very popular where I'm from and I wanted you to try it." Stupid stuff like that. It is very common here for cooks (at gatherings of friends and family) to almost degrade themselves and talk about what a poor job they did and fish for compliments. If you say "Holy crap! This is the most awesome thing ever!" you are asking to be shot down. Better is to say something like: "I know this food is not what you are used to, and you might not like it because it is different. Where I am from, we make this meal to show how much we care about our friends and family. It took me (insert time) to prepare this and I did this because I wanted to share this tradition from my culture with you because you've shown me so much of yours." Even if they don't like it, they will shut up and eat it and ask for more because of the way you presented it. Turn that face crap right back on them. Hahahahaha.
I once took the power seat at a dinner with some people I was meeting without thinking the one in the center facing east or facing the entrance. I was not thinking because I like to come early and be able to see when guests show up so I took the seat facing the entrance bad move. But when I finely got the last odd look I remembered and got out of the seat and greeted everyone and took a less important seat I hope pulled it off.
A habit I can't stop. If i'm on the street with my friends and I see some food or whatever that I like and I say "oh look blablabla I love that it's delicious" and the next thing I know it's bought for me or they're trying to buy it. I don't mean I actually want it... damn.
Oh and i'll never waste money on buying expensive foreign cigarettes as gifts again! They have the thought of having this cool image of smoking foreign cigarettes but in reality they firstly, don't like the taste and secondly are disappointed that the pack isn't beautifully designed, instead it has a massive warning message with a disgusting image on it.
I use to give high fives all the time. And when someone use to put their hand up it indicated for me to give them a high five. Well, I went to confession for the first time and after the confession ended the priest raised his hand up in the air and so I gave him what I thought he wanted, a high five for confessing the sins away. I was totally wrong and the priest and I had an awkward moment. But he proceeded to do what he had to do and I 'unknowingly' got it all wrong!
HugAPanda:
lol.... I almost want to give you a thumbs up for this one... a high five of sorts. Like Phil, I almost think you aren't kidding, but I can't imagine anybody would be so.... so.... mattaya.
