Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Living on the other side of "normal"

Have you ever gone into an Asian grocery store, and stood in line behind someone at the check-out, staring at their unfamiliar package of god-knows-what, and thought: "What the #&*@% is that?"

C'mon admit it, we all have.

Well, the other day I became that weird person with the strange inedible food while I was standing at the check-out of a supermarket near my home that sells some imported "foreigner" food. I had placed a couple of bags of penne pasta on the counter and the Chinese couple in line behind me leaned forward to look at it. The girl, looking positively horrified, turned to her husband and said (in Chinese): "What's that?"

The husband leaned in to get a closer look and had a lightbulb moment: "Ah! It's Italian Noodles!"

5 comments:

verniciousknids said...

This really made me smile! Every time I buy stuff at the supermarket, the customers behind peer into my basket to see what the "gaijin" buys. They are especially shocked when they see "typical Japanese food" in my basket and often strike up conversations with me. The funny thing is that now all that "weird Asian stuff" seems totally normal to me...I've been here too long!

BTW what do you think of Blogger Beta? I'm considering changing over.

Mia said...

Lol..reminds me of the time a friend of mines came over during a holiday dinner and saw some of our traditional latino food. Everytime a new dish was presented she'd get all excited and yell out ^&%##!! is that?!

Note to Verniciousknids:No noooo no Blogger Beta someone told me you lose all of your old posts. I know for a fact that you can't comment on a blog unless they have beta as well. That's what happened to me with Tuddy and Miss Cuddly's blog.

Carbi Yarker said...

About Blogger Beta - you don't lose your old posts and you can still comment - because you can use either your blogger or google account!

Gabby Girl said...

Your comment box hates me. It won't let me comment.

Gabby Girl said...

Oh, go figure, I write your comment box hates me and then it decides to finally comment. What I had said two times before was this:

I talked to my kids about the number 13 on Friday but they didn't seem to care all that much about it. Maybe only certain people think that 13 is unlucky or something. Or maybe the Western fear of it is creeping in to China. But who knows.

PS - Gloria and her friend, Edwardo, are chirping like mad crickets. Phil has been threatening to turn them into Chinese medicine. Heh.

PSS - This thing better post. : )