To dine with the king; to share a meal with the poor

Two incidents remind me of a lesson I was reminded time and again during my diploma days: we should all learn to be all-rounders who are able to dine with the king and share a meal with the poor.

Anna came back from lunch a few days ago grumbling about some senior officers who, according to her, were behaving most inappropriately.

They were having Japanese bentos for lunch in a five star hotel, and Anna found it disturbing that a few senior officers were behaving like some… ‘jakun’.

“They would touch everything and ask, “What’s this? What’s that? Is this halal? Can we eat that? Can we eat that?” Goodness, I would have expected them to know better than to act like that in front of international guests. Of course we made sure everything is halal. Even if they have no idea what everything was, why couldn’t they ask about those things discreetly? Why do they have to ask loudly and let the whole world know how jakun they were?”

Being a Japanese food lover (despite my inability to master the art of handling the hashis/chopsticks well), I could imagine how confusing it could be to some old-school civil servants to be presented with a bento set for the very first time. To the trained eyes, bento might be a colourful and interesting arrangements of gohan (rice), nimono (boiled stuff), yakimono (broiled or deep fried stuff), sashimi, tempura, koonomono (pickles) accompanied by a bowl of miso soup. To the poor stangers-to-bento though, that lunch set must had seen like a compilation of colourful strange and weird tidbits.

Still, that gave the senior officers no valid excuse to behave like noisy three-years-old, loudly asking for explanation from younger officers. Anna felt like it was a disgrace to the service, especially since they were in the company of some international guests. Not knowing is tolerable as people learn new things all the time, but surely one must learn that it is only polite not to flaunt one’s ignorance in the public? Especially when one’s ignorance can be deemed as a shared trait among his or her peers (even though that is far from being true)?

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Yesterday, I went to PWTC to send some important documents to a colleague there. After completing the task, I asked Abang Man, the driver, to stop by any suitable place to get some food. Abang Man had assisted me in running a few errands and I felt obliged to give him a treat. By then, it was a little past four in the evening, thus not many stalls were still opened in our office area. Deciding to play safe, Abang Man took me to a row of stalls near Perkim instead.

“Tapi Cik boleh ke makan kat tempat macam ni?”
(Do you mind eating at such places?)

I assured him that it would be no problem to me. As long as the place is clean, I don’t mind eating in a small warung (food stall). So we had our tea there – I did not had lunch yet so I ordered a plate of Nasi Ayam and iced lime tea while Abang Man settled on having a plate of Maggi goreng and a mug of teh tarik.

I knew some of my friends wouldn’t be caught dead in such warung. Not me though. Three years ago, my mak angkat in Lubuk Kulit in Kuala Lipis once told me that she was thankful to have me as her anak angkat. When I asked her why, she explained that of all anak angkats she had, I was the only one who never complained even once about the kampung food we had over the two weeks I spent there. (Actually, I was a bit turned off by tempoyak for a month after I left the kampung. My foster mother made a dish from tempoyak daily – there was sambal tempoyak, masak lemak tempoyak, rendang tempoyak, serunding tempoyak, etc. I was amazed to know that people from Pahang could come up with so many tempoyak dishes…)

Mak taught me one lesson from a very young age – it doesn’t matter what you eat, at the end of the day, everything will turn into s**t. So I’ve learn not to make a big deal of what or where I eat, so long as it’s halal. Yes, I like tempura, teppanyaki and sushi, but I don’t mind eating pekasam, ikan masin, telur masin and ulam-ulaman. After all, we eat in order to live, not the other way around.

Sure, it would be nice to dine with close pals in Saisaki, Kiku Zakura or Hatsu Hana every once in a while. However, that does not mean I could not equally enjoy a plate of Nasi Ayam in a warung near Perkim building in the company of my office’s driver. Sometimes, listening to a driver’s rants could be very entertaining and enlightening.

I can certainly testify that I've enjoyed such experience.