Takuya told me that he wanted to go to a Vietnamese restaurant the week
previous. As there was a Vietnamese shop called Pho 7 next to campus, I took
him there. Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup dish, where the noodles are thin,
the broth is clear, and the meat is thinly sliced beef. We were given a plate
of bean sprouts, jalapenos, lime, and basil. On top of that, there were two sauces
on the table: Hoison sauce and Sriracha sauce. I taught Takuya the way to eat
pho, which his by adding all the ingredients into the soup bowl while it’s hot,
and add the sauces as much as he liked. While we were eating, we got onto the
topic of culture shocks.
Apparently, Takuya has come to America once before prior to coming to
Tallahassee. He went to New York. At that moment in time, his English has not
yet progressed to the level it is today. He was wandering around the city until
his hunger kicked in. Since he could not speak English very well, he figured that
if he went to someplace familiar looking, it would be okay. That’s when he saw
a McDonald’s. He told me that in Japan, there are plenty of McDonald’s, and he
knows that McDonald’s is an American establishment; therefore he should be
familiar with the menu, atmosphere, etc. However, when he set his foot in the
door, he noticed that American McDonald’s is completely different from the ones
in Japan. The ones here are much dirtier, and the menus were a little
different. What surprised him the most, however, was when he encountered the
cashier taking his order. He had yet to encounter someone who spoke in Ebonics,
so when the woman spoke with a relatively heavy accent and dialect, he could
not understand her even though she was speaking “English.”
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