The Ways of White Folks...

Last Monday RJ and I were on a desperate quest for Thai food in Oakland's Chinatown. The one Thai restaurant near the conference hotel was closed...to my Asian brothers and sisters out there in the world...why is it that just about every Thai and Vietnamese restaurant is closed on Monday? Is this something cultural that I am missing out on...or was there a National Association of Asian Restaurant Owners Thai/Vietnamese Sub-Caucus Meeting where ya'll got together and decided that there would be no Vietnamese or Thai available on Mondays? This is one of the great mysteries of life that I would like to have answered.

Anyway...RJ was extremely put out that we were denied Thai food access...so we began an on foot quest through Chinatown (imagine...no Thai food...in Chinatown...duh!). Also, I had just pumped about 32 dollars in quarters into the parking meter for an hour and 12 minutes of parking time...so I was going to be damned before we moved the car in a long-range search for Thai craving fullfillment. As we walked through C-Town...peering through glass store fronts...hoping to catch some sign of Pad Prig or Pad Woon Sen, Pad Thai or some savory curry or another, RJ decided that we should just stop some random Asian folks on the corner and ask them to point us in the direction of the nearest Thai restaurant. As if they all were walking around with some built in Thai Food GPS system. After I refused to get chopped in the neck by an angry Chinese elder for asking for directions to a Thai restaurant, RJ opted to enter into one of the open, quite delictable Chinese restaurants and ask what may be the dumbest question ever asked in Chinatown...to which the owner responded...unsurprisingly...that there were no Thai restaurants in the vicinity. Then she chopped him in the neck, and I had to carry him back out into the street. Wait...sorry...that was only my fantasy.

So, I mentioned to RJ that I'd seen a Cambodian restaurant nearby...never having had Cambodian cuisine...I was hoping that the lure of the unknown would seduce RJ into giving up his crazed quest. It worked. As we walked into Battambag Cambodian Restaurant on Broadway in Oakland (shameless plug here)....I remarked how Cambodian written in the Roman alphabet reminded me of Tagalog...and RJ remarked how the Cambodians knew that white folks like to see nice paintingss of Asian folks dancing and frolicking on the walls...and that the Cambodians knew how to make some money right there on Broadway by putting up the paintings for white folks walking by. I laughed, called him a racist, and asked for a table for two.

Well...in the middle of our delicious Kampuchean delight...two scarey software designer looking geeks...one bearded with long ratty hair and the other bald...with no personality...sat down next to us. It wasn't five minutes into their meal and conversation that one of the very white ubergeeks said..."I really like the paintings on the wall." At which point I had to have a robust Cambodian server apply the Heimlick maneuver as I attempted to laugh, swallow, and throw up all at the same time. I quick dialed Hell on my cell phone to see if it had frozen over...but after a moment I was forced to admit the impossible...RJ had been right. The white folks were somehow entranced by Thomas Kinkaide-esque paintings of the Cambodian countryside. Perhaps it was all a ploy of the Khmer Rouge to exact revenge on the U.S. for their secret Cambodian war...but whatever the source of the hypnotic power of bad art work...it was effective.

There are times when I simply amazed at the desperate need of individuals (and entire communities) to need to find something familiar in whatever surroundings in which they find themselves. For the software developers it was bad artwork (which totally makes sense...some graphics these days make me want to retch)...for RJ it was that this particular restaurant had smells that he could assimilate in some way...and for me...it was the opportunity to make fun of RJ after an afternoon of hijinks and capers.

In the end...every day...there is something that reminds me that we live in a country that is comprised of incalculable diversity...and ruled by people that want nothing more than to package culture into TV dinners...thaw them out in the comfort of their own living rooms...devour what they like...and toss the rest. That, my friends, is America.

P.S. RJ ain't as bad as all that. He's generally a pretty good white boy...unless he is on the search from some Thai food...then it's One Asian All Asian hell for all those involved. He would also like me to point out that there were a couple of Vietnamese restaurants in the vicinity...I explained to RJ that there is a sizable ethnic Chinese population in Vietnam...which would explain the Vietnamese presence in Chinatown...but he wasn't having that either.  But I love me some RJ...REG!

Comments

[Macho]

this entry made my day. you crack me up! i'm sorry i missed you in oakland.