Hidden Worlds
Aug. 18th, 2006 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranI've been lucky enough to have been granted access to a number of hidden worlds.
One of them involves a humble-looking restaurant with a grandiose name. To those outside of the secret world, it's an unremarkable place, somewhat dingy looking and probably low-down on the hygiene stakes. It's the sort of place you might avoid if you don't like having to sit near strangers or deal with a waitress who might not speak good English. To those of us on the inside, it's a local institution - a warm, comforting place with friendly people and uncommonly good food. It's one of those special places that feels as if it has a life of its own. You can tell by looking at the faces of the people eating there - families, students, workers, police. The newcomers stand out because they're the ones who act like they still notice the paper menus on the walls and the minimal decor, and who address the waitresses as though they don't speak good English. Perhaps there may have even been a time when it used to look dingy and comical to me too, although if so, it's been so long ago that I've forgotten. I still get a little shock, every now and again, when I meet someone who hasn't been granted access to this world and we speak at cross-purposes because our mental images of the place are so different.
There are other worlds that I haven't been granted access to yet. Some of them, I can glimpse from the outside. Some I've only heard about. There is, for example, a secret world supposedly laid over Sydney where Japanese expats can live and shop and work all without speaking English. I've been in similar expat situations in different parts of the world, but never in my own city. It's intriguing that such a world can exist and yet only leave hints of its existence.
Most amazing of all, is the knowledge that there are even more worlds out there that I'm still yet to discover. How many others are there tucked inside dingy restaurants or hidden around the city?
One of them involves a humble-looking restaurant with a grandiose name. To those outside of the secret world, it's an unremarkable place, somewhat dingy looking and probably low-down on the hygiene stakes. It's the sort of place you might avoid if you don't like having to sit near strangers or deal with a waitress who might not speak good English. To those of us on the inside, it's a local institution - a warm, comforting place with friendly people and uncommonly good food. It's one of those special places that feels as if it has a life of its own. You can tell by looking at the faces of the people eating there - families, students, workers, police. The newcomers stand out because they're the ones who act like they still notice the paper menus on the walls and the minimal decor, and who address the waitresses as though they don't speak good English. Perhaps there may have even been a time when it used to look dingy and comical to me too, although if so, it's been so long ago that I've forgotten. I still get a little shock, every now and again, when I meet someone who hasn't been granted access to this world and we speak at cross-purposes because our mental images of the place are so different.
There are other worlds that I haven't been granted access to yet. Some of them, I can glimpse from the outside. Some I've only heard about. There is, for example, a secret world supposedly laid over Sydney where Japanese expats can live and shop and work all without speaking English. I've been in similar expat situations in different parts of the world, but never in my own city. It's intriguing that such a world can exist and yet only leave hints of its existence.
Most amazing of all, is the knowledge that there are even more worlds out there that I'm still yet to discover. How many others are there tucked inside dingy restaurants or hidden around the city?
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-19 12:04 pm (UTC)I was reading a review of a vietnamese restaurant which was complaining about the unfriendly, surly waitress who never came back to check if they needed anything, and the decor, and the unstylish menu, and my first thought was that this person had no idea that this restaurant was a community, rather than an eating venue. This is not a place to get food, it's a place to connect.
I was thinking that many restaurants are like that, and that you need to have an open attitude, to be willing to watch and learn about how to act in that space.
One of the most successful ways of learning thi, for people who aren't failiar with restaurant-as-community is yum cha, surprisingly enough. There, the food on trolleys, and the noisy, boisterous nature of it, softens the other differences.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-20 08:33 am (UTC)Also, from another angle, I've had a similar problem trying to explain to Malaysian students about Australian pubs - how they can actually be a place you'd go for a chat instead of somewhere you'd be expected to get drunk - and why people would actually bring their families to one.