"Dinner at 6:00" and cultural differences

As a kid, I always got fidgety if the newspaper was delivered later than usual.  Once, a great-uncle who was visiting with us asked me what my problem was and, more pointedly remarked: "as if the world waits for your statement on the day's news!"

If he were alive, he might chuckle about how I am making statements everyday in response to news and comments I read and watch--isn't that what blogging is mostly about?

The newspaper I grew up reading has a magazine feature on entertaining guests.  The author writes:

guests who come at eight — if that was when they were invited — deserve congratulations. If everyone's here by 9 o'clock I'm happy. Because the whole idea is to chat and catch up, you don't want to serve dinner the moment they're all there. But when some people come late, others, who thought they could come on time and wind up early, have to wait.

This alone reveals a completely different culture, a world vastly different, from the one that I have gotten comfortable with halfway around from India.

Dinner invitations are typically for six or half-past that hour at the latest.  Which means that an hour into the chat, we sit down for dinner.  Rarely is a guest anything more than five or ten minutes late.

A Swedish student who stayed with us for a fortnight remarked about their punctuality this way: "if dinner is at 6:00, and if we reach the host's place by 5:58, then we kind of wait for those two minutes outside the home, and then ring the doorbell at 6:00"

What a huge difference then between the culture in which I grew up, and the one in which I now live!

I can't even recall the last time I sat down for a meal at nine in the night!  By nine here, my system has digested the food, and I am typically getting ready to snack on a few nuts or a fruit.

There is more; the author of that piece in the newspaper writes:

The first is the one who looks at your table and says “the muffins are burnt”/ “the cake (which I've painstakingly baked, layered and iced) is crooked”.

The second kind takes a bite of something and says “Whoa! Uff! I can't eat that, it's too spicy”. I run to her with a bowl of cold dahi and she waves me away, and he who says, surveying the table, “I'm allergic to glutens. Isn't there any rice?”

My father noted after his visit to the US that people here are complimentary.  "It is wonderful" is a phrase that made a deep impression on him--that is the kind of response from dinner guests, or gift recipients, even f the food is lousy or the gift is sub-par. 

Sure, some of those compliments might be superficial, but that is infinitely better than guests casually and mercilessly critiquing a host about the food that he or she slaved over, right?

The great-uncle was one of those critics.  Well, he went around criticizing the food, and everything else.  There was no topic that was off-limits to him.  He brought many to tears.  A number of women in the extended family were practically traumatized by his scathing remarks on dishes.

These days when I visit India, I follow my schedules and protocols.  My breakfast and dinner hours are an hour or two before the norm in that context. The academic in me worries that I am being culturally insensitive.  But, ...

I am delighted if anybody cooks and invites me over.  The last time I was there, I was so thankful for the help from my parents' neighbors.  So thankful that I sent them thank-you cards after returning to the US. 

Those thank-you cards, which is not a part of the Indian culture, apparently was the talk of the apartment complex for a few days.  The neighbors repeatedly mentioned to my parents how much they liked the thanks I sent all the way from the US (and, of course, on what a wonderful son they have!)