Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Table Manner

Here’s a pic of our family praying before Darren’s meal. (Thanks to my friend Anita who took and uploaded the pic in my FB.)


He closes his eyes that tightly and says “AMEN!” right after ^___^


Other than praying, I’ve also been teaching him to offer people around him to eat whenever he’s eating.
In Chinese (and most other Asian) culture, when you’re eating, you have to offer people around you, especially older people, your food. I don’t mean the food from your plate, but clean food from the table. It’s considered good manners.

He grasp the idea pretty quickly. Whenever he eats, and there are people around him, I no longer have to remind him to offer. He’d say, “Mbah, mamam!” to the old lady who works at our house, making his offer. He’d also say, “Kong, mamam!” to his grandpa, or “Paw, mamam!” to his Papaw (=Daddy), and so on.

Funny thing is whenever an ant happens to walk by on the table. He’d say, “Mut, mamam!” [“Ant, eat!”] and put a crumb of his bread or a grain of his rice within the ant’s reach.
Of course, I never taught him that, I guess he’s just kinda considerate ^__^

2 comments:

  1. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!! That's a success alright..sampe semut juga dikasi mamam. =D We were just talking about offering other people to eat whenever you are eating, and Hans' family thought it was a crazy thing to do. They think that it's not sincerity then if u r offering just because it's something you have to do. haha..somehow I can understand that..If you think about it, there are a lot of things in our culture that won't be considered sincere in other cultures, eh? namanya juga basa basi..hahaha..

    ReplyDelete
  2. BWA HA HA HA HA HA...He's SO funny! :-D

    Shinta: Ember di dunia Indo emang banyak pisan basa-basinya, ga tulus jadinya he he...

    ReplyDelete

Ayooo silakan berkomentar.... :)