Soonday

It was back to church for the first time in 2 weekends today. Ray tagged along. Angie brought a friend. A German guy sat down next to me, dressed in the same bright blue colored top and khaki bottoms as me. Coincidence? I learned afterward that his name was Floori (or something like that) and that he's here studying abroad for a semester at UMac.

The sermon was good today--it was a family service where they skipped the Sunday School for kids. The theme was superheroes. For the ice breaker, they had a competition of trivia on superheroes that were superheroes in a different land than their home. ...this was the point where I wish I'd had a MyBrother'sBrainInMyPocket app because he knows this stuff. Who remembers that Wolverine was from Canada anyway? Ray does.

There was a free curry and rice lunch after church. I feel like I get WAY too excited about free food, but what can I say? I just love it. They also had bread and a Skippy Peanut Butter/Chocolate mix. Who puts PB and chocolate together? Someone fantastic, that's who.

I had told Angie I would help her grade today, so Ray and I were trying to kill time while we waited for her to text me back on details. How do you best kill time? Food...How do you do that most cheaply? McDonald's. So I had a Coke Float and Ray ate more food after lunch. We then walked to the shuttle and then to the apartment to burn off 1/10 the calories though. The weather was nice again today--now that the rain has passed, the temperatures are back near 80/90 degrees Fahrenheit and 83% humidity. I can't decide if I like the chilly or the hot...

I met Angie at her apartment to grade papers for a few hours. The assignment was reading comprehension of a story about Chinese American girl introducing her boyfriend's Caucasian family to her family over Christmas dinner. It was interesting analyzing the cultural differences that I think a lot of times we overlook. For instance, in Chinese culture, it is polite to burp after a meal. It's like a gesture of thanks that shows the food was good. In America, belching at dinner is considered rude. Also in China, they share the food family style, you have a small plate, and you use your chopsticks to get things out of the main dishes--it's more germ sharing and would probably be looked down on by many Americans. One other cultural difference is how the food is served. It's completely normal in China/Macau to present an animal as it is in a dish. For example, fish are served eyes and all in one whole piece on the plate and you pick pieces apart to eat. Specifically in the story, it focused on the fish cheeks just below the eyeballs. It makes the eyeballs bulge when you pick it out--unappetizing to some.
The story focuses on how the girl was embarrassed by her family, but realized later that there was no reason to be ashamed of her culture. I've been thinking about this a lot more recently--how we have cultural standards and norms of living; how we judge people that do not live by these norms as impolite or disgraceful;  and whether these norms are justified/logical/most efficient. I mean, tell me what is so wrong with burping? Nothing...it's just the message it sends. And these messages are only sent because they are the messages we attached to the action. Interesting how the human mind works, huh? And all along, maybe you've thought it was really just WRONG to belch. Negative on that...cultural context matters.

This evening, Lauren, Athena, and I went to a movie at the Macau Cultural Center. The movie Chico y Rita was about a Cuban couple that played piano and sang and loved each other at all the wrong times. He follows her to New York. It was an animated movie, but not a kids cartoon. I expected it to dig more deeply into the cultural implications of the Cubans in America and the revolution, etc., but it ended up being more about the couple and their love for each other. I could have passed on some of their personal life. Rita does have one spurt where she breaks down on stage about how she can perform as a mega star in all these nice hotels, but she can't stay in these hotels because she's Latino. ...This was the real deal. Remember Lucille Ball and husband Desi Arnaz, how big of a deal it was that he was Cuban? It's these types of things we tend to overlook.

Overall it was a productive and semi-relaxing day. Grading was actually very entertaining because of some of the answers that the students came up with...and because Angie's hilarious. She bought me tofu fa as a thank you treat--it's tofu with basically sugary syrupy liquid in it (aka not healthy). It was very tasty and so worth helping a friend out :)