As I was trying to figure out what was for lunch on Saturday, I was looking over Ramen noodles. (Why do I have it anyway…I don’t know.) I’ve never served it to the kids, but I remember that growing up, we always ate Ramen with chopsticks. To this day, I can’t eat them without chopsticks.
I then realized, I haven’t taught my kids how to eat with chopsticks.
You see, since my mom was born and raised as a missionary kid in Japan, we were exposed to chopsticks growing up. She didn’t teach us Japanese, though. Knut’s dad speaks fairly fluently Norwegian, and didn’t teach Knut either. I guess we both have a bilingual parent who did not pass down their bilingual-ness.
I can’t remember if it was last year or the year before, but when my parents were in town, we went to a “Japanese party” at one of my mom’s childhood friend’s house. It was a flash back to some family get-togethers of my childhood with a full buffet of Japanese food, not a fork in sight, and people telling the punchline to jokes in Japanese. Although Knut knew some people at the party, I didn’t realize that he had never eaten with chopsticks before. When he asked for a fork, the host (who is a professor in missions at a seminary near us) denied him. Knut wasn’t sure what to do. All that yummy food, and having no idea how to eat it.
He put up a good effort, with some chuckles suppressed around the table. When the dessert was served, and it was some sort of custard, Knut looked at his host and said, “Now can we get silverware?” Our host denied him again, and Knut’s response was “Come on!” Never had I seen him take so much time eating.
Back to our Ramen noodles, though. To get the kids excited about them, I brought out the chopsticks, and told them it’s time they learned how to use them.
I don’t think I was that great of a teacher, though.
In fact, the kids were pretty proud that they invented a new way to use chopsticks. I was trying to explain to them that Japanese custom of lifting the bowl to your mouth, instead of leaning over to eat. They couldn’t do that with a chopstick in each hand. So we’ll leave that to the next lesson, I guess. Or maybe I’ll just let my mom teach them the right way when we go down for a visit this winter.
Maybe she could give Knut some more pointers too.
Juliana Abraham says
November 29, 2009 at 2:17 pmYou bring up an interesting observation about not being taught Japanese. Ashish can speak Hindi, but doesn’t teach it to Safina or Serena. When we’re with other kids who speak Hindi or another lanuguage like, Malayalam, he’ll readily speaks it with them. I ask him why he doesn’t teach the girls and his response is that he wants them to learn something more useful, like Spanish.
I think if I could speak Hindi, and Ashish and I conversed in Hindi together, we would teach our girls that language. So, since your mom didn’t have anyone to speak Japanese to in your presence, I’m sure that’s likely the reason.
Mom says
November 30, 2009 at 2:51 amThanks for getting me off the hook, Jules!
And for Gretchen, all I can say is “Gambatte”. As the missions professor for the translation. 🙂