My first few days at college, I didn’t know a soul so I wandered into the dorm lobby and hung out by the pool table.  Eventually I started playing with an asian student.  Eventually I met his friends, and 15 years later three of us are still close friends who live and work in northern california.  One of them is getting married in December, which means I now know his fiancee and her friends and her family.  Yesterday, at a restaurant to sample the food that’ll be served at the wedding banquet, I stood out as the lone caucasian at a table of chinese and filipino guests.  From a blurry distance, I probably looked like a marshmallow floating on top of a sea of butterscotch.

My friends obviously speak English but their parents’ skills tend to be dicier. The nice thing is, the parents will talk to you anyway.  It doesn’t matter whether you understand them or they understand you.  The bride-to-be’s mother turns to me and says something that sounds like:

“Konichiwa don how?”

I respond, “I definitely have a problem with steel tariffs even if the short-term impact is to the protect the working class.”

“Yes, yes!  Konichia don how.”

And we can go on like this for several minutes and end happily by drinking tea.  The point is to be social, even if the exchange of information is highly limited. 

The food tasting itself was also educational.  I eat chinese food frequently, but this was serious banquet food and it carried its own set of unique traditions.  I learned to watch everyone else before helping myself to the next course.  Otherwise, I’d get involved in a conversation like:

“You like those kneecaps of braised duck?”

“Oh yes, delicious--”

“NO NO, do not throw bones away!”

“Oh.  What do I do with them?”

“You take the bones and you hurl them at the other members of the wedding party.  The flailing of poultry parts reminds us that every beginning also has an ending.”