GRIOTS REPUBLIC - AN URBAN BLACK TRAVEL MAG - SEPTEMBER 2016

A
good deal of my travels in
Southeast Asia involved eating
with strangers. Often times
there were two to three people who
came to sit or I came to sit with at
tables in various eating arenas. This
concept does not seem bizarre, until
you think about how the US and
many other Western countries tend
to isolate ourselves in individualism
or take up a table for three with one
person. Southeast Asia has no guidelines
in that sense. Instead, eating
becomes a community event in which
anyone can partake in and meet a
new friend.
Within the tourism baby of Myanmar,
I was able to have a seat at a variety
of food market stalls that had random
people already eating at them.
One of these instances, I sat down
for a bowl of mohinga with the serving
lady and a stranger. I didn’t know
any Burmese and no one knew any
English, but the stranger, the lady
chef and I all knew mohinga.
As I began to eat, the stranger gesticulated
how to eat the delicious mohinga
and the chef knew what to do
for payment when I was done with my
meal. Thismoment of community eating
would occur in Vietnam, Cambodia,
Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong,
Thailand and Indonesia.
I began to relish having a meal with
people I didn’t know. Sometimes they
had conversations with me or simply
educated me on the manners of eating
in their countries. For instance,
the Malays would demonstrate how
to eat food with your hands instead
of utensils. They discussed how this
enabled sharing amongst families,
friends and communities who could
all enjoy each other’s food.
In the case of Cambodia, students
would go home to enjoy their lunches
with their families instead of having
a quick cafeteria meal. Even people
who were visiting from another country
in the region would be welcoming
and inviting. This was most apparent
when two Hong Kong women had
zero issues sitting with me in Chiang
Mai for a bowl of khao soi. As such,
my Blackness was not seen as fearful
to the people of this region, it was a
non-entity
How can
we have a
culture
of food if
we don’t
even take
the time to
enjoy it?
and their
curiosity
came from
me being a
solo traveler.
People had
no qualms
over this
racial difference
and sat
next to me
because
there was a
free seat or
ignored me because they had to get
somewhere. Southeast Asia is a community
and that means you follow the
ebb and flow of it whether you are
from their culture or not.
By the time I got to Hong Kong, this
phenomenon began to push me to eat
slower and enjoy my food as well. We
frequently rush to have quick lunches
or eat our food while walking instead