And to Noodles You Shall Return

The dissonance between two cultures that rub up against each other is familiar enough to be cliche, but yesterday's experience left me bemused. After a frustrating day in which I had to chair a meeting and complete several projects while a part on my computer's motherboard was going bad, I was eager to get home, grab some sustenance and the remote control, and slink into my man-cave.

Joe waved at me as I was trudging to the train. Joe is Italian, but like other Bay Area office workers with postgraduate degrees, fancies himself a multicultural maven. "Gung Hee Fat Choy!" he shouted. Yes, I had nearly forgotten, "Happy Year of the Rooster," I replied. Joe grinned, "You mean Year of the Cock!" A half-dozen rejoinders popped into my mind, but people were beginning to turn their heads, and one of us has to act his age. Besides, he's ex-Navy.

Yes, it was Chinese New Year, but that was not why the mother of my children was pacing the floor at 6:45. "Ash Wednesday services are at 7", she said matter-of-factly, "are you ready to go?" My shoulders sagged involuntarily, but because the youngster was watching me closely, I exercised restraint for the second time in the hour and kept my thoughts to myself.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40-day period that precedes Easter on the Christian calendar. Lent commemorates Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan to abandon his lonely path to the cross. During Lent Christians are supposed to fast, pray, and rid themselves of worldly appetites. The evening service was accordingly somber, as the minister marked each supplicant's forehead with black ashes and intoned, "remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return". The constant reminders of my mortality and sinful nature did the trick, and I walked to the car in a contemplative mood and prepared to meditate, read, and navel-gaze just like I did in college, only now without the aid of controlled substances.

My reverie was broken when the mother of my children declared, "it's New Year, let’s go out to dinner." Thinking about the crowds at the more well-known Chinese restaurants, I pointed the car to the edge of Foster City and went to the obscure but excellent Joy Restaurant. We entered to a cacophony of sound. The room was packed with young Asians toasting each other in Mandarin. At the large tables were groups of families, and in the corner sat a local celebrity trying to converse with a friend over the din. My meditative regimen would have to wait until tomorrow. . © 2005 Stephen Yuen