Chewing along
As I made my way over here today, through Sunday-crowded streets, chewing on a Seeni Saambal Bun from Delight Bakery, it struck me that I've never seen Srilankans eating while walking. Not that I can recall anyway. The exception is possibly with icecream, although I am not sure. Is this some cultural taboo I have overlooked? Or is it just that exhaust fumes and hungry looking beggars have a tendency to kill the appetite? If there is someone out there with an answer I am all ears.
Oh, and I have a little correction to make. In an earlier entry, writing about the Americans I have befriended here in Kandy, I wrote that they were once students with the "Iowa program". *cough* This as it turns out was a big fat lie. They have no connections to the University of Iowa whatsoever, and were, I believe, a bit offended at me writing so. They were, however, students with the "ISLE program" which makes a good bit more sense. Oh well. Honest mistake! :)
/haakon/
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9 comments:
Eating in public signifies LTTE membership. Try urinating in public to clear your reputation.
indi - ha ha! :)
well the only reason i can think of is the belief that its quite frankly rude to eat in public, where people can see you. my grandmother (along with others from that generation) believe that to eat in front of people is asking for trouble, because if they drool over whatever you're eating and feel desire to be eating too, you are in turn going to end up with a stomach ache...i guess its just courtesy to not eat in public, and make everyone who is not eating want to, too. i dont know. its just an attempt at courtesy, i think.
At my former group at the University in Trondheim we had visiting scientists from "all over" the world. I remember this being a topic of discussion once.
Several places, you simply do not "walk the streets eating". Some places you simply don't walk the streets at all ;P
i learned from my 2yearsago hostfamily that it's rude to eat in public, not for electra's reason (tho that sounds nice/true) but instead because it's dirty.
huh?
i drew my own conclusions--in france, eg, it's rude to eat on the street (except walking-specific foods on a stick, like ice cream pops) because it shows that you're eating sloppily and casually. eating is something to be methodical and devote oneself to. here, sometimes, i'll eat something on the road in complete angry-american defiance of the Rules.
however, usually i suffer the consequences:
a) eating soya ice cream cones, everyone stares as i "lustily" lick the thing with my tongue out
b) eating short-eats while walking home cuz i'm not having dinner til late, little boys laugh at me and ask mockingly, are you hungry, white girl? (i mean, YES, ya dumb kid!)
for the record i wasn't miffed about the Iowa mixup. i was amused because no american would mis-hear the phonetic differences between those words. but, eh, those norwegian white tigers...
actually i think white tigers (in nature) are always deaf. someone make a joke out of this, please; indi?
Thanks for good response and plausible theories, although urinating on the street provoked some surprised looks ;)
I remember reading an article by an American sociologist (or was he a psychologist?), though annoyingly I can't remember his name... (George something??)- about the the evil eye. It was a bit of an old-school cross-cultural comparative study on jealousy, filled to the brink with empirical goodies.
It makes sense, and I think he wrote a good deal about this, that eating in public, if not sharing, will provoke "the evil eye" with the eater risking all kinds of unfortunate conseqences.. like stomach ache and the worse. I buy into that. Maybe I will even change my ways.
Anonymous: You realize I am with the University of Trondheim Do I know you?
Rebecca: I am as a matter of fact from a family of hearing impaired :)
The anonymous at NTNU, Trondheim. You surely know me. I Unintentionally wrote my response anonymously.
Aaah... I should have known. A split second there I thought it was my supervisor leaving anonymous comments :)
hm. i've always just been told that it's considered rude...i suppose i didn't realize how many people eat while walking down the streets in america until i was in countries where it provoked stern and/or strange looks. do a lot of people in norway eat in public? i was thinking it was perhaps another aspect of american informality that the rest of the world just thinks is bizarre. who knows. for the record, in japan it is also the same - eating while walking down the street is looked upon as quite odd and/or rude.
I doubt anyone would raise an eyebrow in Norway. Except, perhaps, for some old people. I guess this is a part of our shared, though America-inspired, capitalistic, obsessive-effective, post-modern, individulistic, urban mindset.
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