Yesterday, I had lunch with my hosts. We went to a Italian resturant. I was glad they decided to order and share the food. I like variety when I eat. We ordered chicken caesar salad, bacon salmon pizza and fried seafood bowl.
One of my host is a Kiwi working and living here in Australia. The other is Hong Kong Chinese who moved to Australia at 10 years old. The Kiwi is married to a Hong Kong girl who moved to New Zealand at about 10 or 11 as well.
As usual, we talk about things in general. The Hong Kong Chinese girl who I shall refer to as Flo made a statement - what is rich? She says if people go to her house, they says she is rich. However, if they open up her clothing cupboard, she is poor. She has plenty of things but very poor in clothing. Interesting! Flo compartmentize riches in different category of possessions. How about money? Flo agrees that many people will look at money as a measure of riches. Flo is so Australian in her outlook. Being the first generation immigrant, I expect her to have a lot of Hong Kong values passed from her parents. Although I am making general statements of Hong Kong residents of pre-1997, it is generally true that Hong Kong residents are obsessed with making money. During the 80's, my colleagues from HK are obsessed with making money. So Flo is a surprise for me.
Flo is keen to do a good job. She works hard and she asked hard questions. She drive the training session I had with the group. I will be sweating bullets if not for the fact that I had personal experience in all the questions she asked. Interestingly, Flo while driven did not show ambitions that most Hong Kongers had. This is another virtue she acquired growing up in Australia.
Then Kim(not her real name), the wife of the Kiwi came to sign some legal papers to sell her property in New Zealand. I have to ask Kim to join us. She has her toddler girl with her. The toddler is gorgeous. She has big eyes and long eyelashes. She has limited vocabulary but when she asked for food, she looked so adorable. I was so happy to have a baby with us for lunch. Kim is a Hong Kong girl as well. She is so reserved and apologetic. When I insisted that she eats, she asked for the menu. I thought Kim did not like the food we ordered and wanted something different. Then she asked her husband and her hubby says he will pay separately. This is cultural shift for me. We are sharing our food and why did she even think that she has to eat separately. My inate culture is eating together is most important. Who pays for the meal, we can worry about it later.
When the meeting ended, the taxi that I booked did not come. Worse is that I cannot get another taxi in as the taxi who took the booking is somewhere else and refuses to let go since it is a good fare. So my Kiwi host drove me to a train station. On the way we talked. I learned that he lived in England for a couple of years. At the age of 15, he has been mixing with Asians so he understand my surprise about his wife not eating our food. He says he has a reverse culture shock when at the 23 when he just returned to New Zealand, his brother invited him to have a meal with some friends. At the end of the meal each calculated his share and paid the bill. He had not split bills with his own friends for many years.
This is interesting learning for me. Now that my boys grew up in Singapore, they have the Singaporean culture and outlook in life. I wonder how much cultural tension I would have with them if we had continue to lived in Canada.
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