Archive for the 'Asian-ness' Category
July 4 2010: Food Safety Transgressions
Filed under Asian-ness with 3 Comments
I attended a food safety for supervisors course yesterday at the request of my organisation. As I regularly run events for them and supervise fellow staff in circulating with food platters, they thought it would be appropriate to pay for me to attend what could be categorised as a “professional development workshop”. It was about as basic and based on common sense as it could be – wash your hands before preparing food, clean regularly, don’t use the same chopping board for raw and cooked food etc.
The most amusing part of the day came right at the start when the facilitator ran through a few real life examples of food-related organisations who had been caught blatantly breaching basic food safety regulations:
- A bakery with a cockroach baked into a sandwich loaf
- A dead rat found in the storage area of a restaurant
- A restaurant keeping live crabs in the restroom
All the above transgressions occurred in Asian-run establishments. It makes sense – when you’re an immigrant running a restaurant in Australia, what do you know of food safety when you speak little English and when there would have been no such regulations your home country? To reduce the likelihood of such incidents occurring, it makes sense to me for local governments to provide training workshops on food safety conducted in languages other than English. At the very least, it would make sense for literature on the topic to be made available in multiple languages – that way, even if people don’t get the benefit of hands-on training, they still have access to the basic principles in a language they can understand fluently.
June 21 2010: More Migrant Mentality
Filed under Asian-ness with 9 Comments
I’ve spoken previously about one part of my personality that comes from being a first generation Asian migrant in a Western country – the inability to sit still and simply do nothing. It’s all about an unstoppable work ethic. Related to this, I’d like to cue you in on another part of my personality and mentality that comes from being a migrant – the inability to say no to freebies. Part of the unofficial job description of being an event organiser and general organisational dogsbody is that you get freebies from potential sponsors/venues – lots and lots of them. I’ve managed to restrain myself in terms of the cheap freebie pens, post it notes, magnets, keyrings, etc. They’re no longer a temptation, as they just increase clutter and useless possessions.
However, when it comes to free meals, I don’t know when to stop. Functions I attend/organise generally have buffet-style meals set up for morning and afternoon tea and lunch. Help yourself. Eat as much as you want. Go back for third and fourth helpings. Let us bribe you with food to encourage you to give us your business.
On a normal day, I don’t even eat morning or afternoon tea. But if it’s there, and it’s free, why yes, I will have two slices of cake for morning tea and three scones for afternoon tea. On a normal day, I’ll generally have fruit and crackers or a muesli bar for lunch. But if it’s there and it’s free, why yes, I will have two serves of three different types of salads, hot dishes, and gourmet wraps. If I’m staying overnight on a business trip and there’s a free hot breakfast, I’ll have bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes and hash browns instead of my usual cereal or toast.
The reasoning behind this inability to say no to free meals is simple – when you’re a first generation migrant, you grow up with family stories of how they never had enough to eat, how food was always scarce and how it was always a struggle to get by day by day. So even while I might have spent the majority of my life growing up in the relative prosperity of Australia, there’s always that theme of food scarcity in the back of my mind. You eat what you can now, because you never know where your next meal is coming from.
On this note, I’m heading to Auckland for the next four days for a conference. A conference with free meals. Expect me to gain five kilos and have immense eater’s remorse by the time I return to Melbourne.
May 24 2010: Why Aren’t You, Didn’t You, Couldn’t You?
Filed under Asian-ness & Family with 10 Comments
There are a number of new phone providers who hawk their services (cheap international calls!) in the CBD by accosting pedestrians walking by. The theme however, is that they only accost those who look as though they may have connections overseas. So they’ll accost me, someone who is clearly of East Asian descent. They’ll accost anyone who looks Indian, Middle Eastern, South East Asian, African. If you’re Anglo-Saxon however, you’re safe. You’ll never be stopped and sold an international phone plan!
Narrow-sighted marketing aside (what’s to say that someone who looks white doesn’t have relatives or friends overseas they’d like to call?), I find their sales pitch to me amusing. Communicating with my extended family isn’t something I’d do on a whim. It’s the type of thing that needs lengthy preparation time – e.g. I need to plan ahead and only see them briefly when I’m on holiday in Hong Kong, but never be surprised by a phone call. After all, when all they have to say to me is:
- Why didn’t you study accounting or medicine at university, instead of humanities?
- Why aren’t you already doing a PhD?
- Why are you working at a not-for-profit, instead of having a stable job at a big bank?
- Why aren’t you earning six figures a year already?
- Why have you moved out of the family home even though you’re not married?
- Why aren’t you married?
- Why are you dating a white boy instead of our own people?
- Why can’t you lose three dress sizes and fit into a size six?
Why would I willingly speak to them without prior preparation and boosting of my self-esteem? I get enough criticism from my parents. I don’t need it from all my other relatives too!