Gimme those eggs!

It's been awhile since I have had a cultural experience in which I made a total fool of myself, but I had one happen recently and wanted to share about it.

To me, many cross-cultural mishaps occor when people assume things, or are unable to explain things because of language barriers or cultural differences. This is true for both serious offenses and funny social mishaps. Sometimes we don't stop to think about a situation, but get caught up in the moment and assume that we have certain rights or that a situation must be the way that we see it. This is the background for what I find to be a quite humorous and humbling story a couple of days ago on the school trip.

Every year before the first week of school, the CMS faculty takes a school trip to some location in Taiwan. Thes school hires a company to drive us around and set up sight seeing excursions in the places that we visit. It is a wonderful time to get to know my fellow Taiwanese co-workers and many of their families. It is also a good chance to see a new part of the island and have a quick 3 day vacation before school starts the following week.

On these trips we usually stop at fancy traditional Chinese restaurants where the meals are served family style and are set meals in which every table gets the same food. On the first day of the trip we stopped for lunch at a restaurant just like this. Now, these restaurants are sometimes hit and miss. Don't get me wrong, my Taiwanese co-workers seem to love each and every dish that is brought out, but not all of the dishes appeal the American teacher portion of the faculty. In fact, while our Taiwanese counter parts are stuffing themselves and getting doggy bags, I am sometimes just scrapping by to be satisfied until I can get a snack at the next rest stop. So as I sat down with my fellow American teachers to eat lunch, I was a liitle worried about what delacacies would be coming my way.

All 9 of us Americans ended up sitting together at a table, and we began discussing what would be served. A couple of things were already sitting on the table, including a dish of eggs that looked absolutely delicious. Eggs are a great food because for the most part they taste the same in all cultures. I mean an egg is an egg and provided their are no srange sauces on them, they are easy to enjoy. Thus we knew we had one dish to look forward to.

Our hope was soon to fade however. Within less than a minute of sitting down a man came back and snatched the egg from our table. He walked quickly with it over to his table, where he was seated with several other men. We were in a state of shock over why our eggs were stolen and how we could get them back.

It was decided that we should go over and talk to the person who took them, so I went and approached the table to ask about the egg. At this point my mind was a little confused and my Chinese seemed to fail me, because about all I could say as please give us eggs. I was unable to communicate what had happened or why it had happened. I stood there for a little bit, and the man looked confused but eventually he got up and went to the main counter. It seemed like he would be getting us our eggs that he took.

So, I sat back down and we continued our conversation, trying to unravel what exactly had just happened. Within in a few minutes, the waitress came by and put a new plate of eggs on our table, and we were satisfied. In fact the eggs ended up being very delicious.

As the meal wound down, we wanted to see if we could get another egg dish because it was that good. So Kevin went to talk to one of the teachers we knew and asked him to get us eggs, but he kind of joked around but didn't seem like he would get us anything. Then, we saw the man who had taken our eggs in the first place, and Kevin went to talk to him. He said that we wanted another plate of eggs, and the man eventually went up to the counter again and we soon received our second helping.

At this point we were feeling pretty good about the meal and the wonderful eggs that we had the chance to eat. We saw some other teachers and looked at some other tables and wanted to know if they too had enjoyed the eggs in the set meal. I found a couple of teachers in the English department and inquired to them about the eggs, and they had no idea what I was talking about. They had not gotten any egss. As I looked around at more tables, I did not see a single faculty table with eggs on them.

I eventually decided to go talk to the man who had taken our eggs. I spoke to him a second time and asked him more about the eggs and who he was. I soon discovered that he was a tour guide and that he was sitting on the table with all of our bus drivers. I asked him if the eggs were only for their table and he said, yes!!! He informed me that there were not supposed to be any eggs for the teachers from the school. At this point I began to feel rather embarrassed and I apologized for our requesting of the eggs. He kind of laughed and said it was ok, but I still felt bad.

We had assumed that the eggs were for us, and that this man was just taking them because he wanted some more eggs. I felt bad for going and talking to him and asking him to get us something that was not rightfully ours: more eggs. I did not take the time to consider that he was probably intimidated to speak to a group of foreigners using Chinese. He probably did not feel he could explain the situation so he just took the eggs.

On top of that, we asked for a second helping of that which was not ours, and received it. Again going back to cultural miscommunications because of things that cannot be communicated and because people think they have certain rights.

Thankfully, the tour guide (Kay-wan), was a good sport and laughed about it. In fact, Kevin and I ran into him later that night in the hotel and played some cards and had a beer with him. It was fun and we all laughed about the eggs.

On top of all of that, when we went to the restaurant on the third day of the trip (yes it was the same one, but we had a different set meal), he came up to our table and gave us another plate of eggs. He held his finger over his mouth, saying "ssshhhhh", but had a smile when he gave them to us.

So yes, we got our eggs...and a little bit of humble pie, along with a story.