When I am in the Brittain Dining Hall (HW#1)

Another end of the world has always been attractive, but like exploring the green land in a desert, underneath curiosity and enthusiasm, there is fear. Life is not easy all the time. On contrary to what scientists say that we are disrupting the environment, we are the one who has to make changes in most case. It’s naive to restrict what’s going on. What we could do is being happy on the way of fitting in the world.

Before coming to the States, I had had conversation with my friends who went to high school here. I was packing at that time so I asked them what I should bring. I felt it was a stupid question as soon as it came out of my mouth. Answers to such questions varied a lot from person to person. However, just few seconds later, they turned to me at the same time and yelled the same word, “food”.

Days later, with a drawer of Chinese snack, I got here. I didn’t know what’s ahead of me, just for preparation. Life is not easy all the time. My upcoming story with the Brittain dining hall proved it.
It was impressive. With neat tables and chairs, soft light and polite food servers, the Brittain dining hall seemed as nice as any luxurious restaurant. So did food there: they were shining, smiling at me, and waiting for me to call their names. Unfortunately, I didn’t know any of them. I wanted to call but didn’t know how. I tried to listen to what others called them, but their names went away so fast like a shy girl saying her name. Even though I heard it many times, I still couldn’t figure what it was. What should I do? If I couldn’t speak, what would they get me?

Nervousness occupied me and I began to look around. Every line was moving forward smoothly with plates full of food. I stood there helplessly, wondering which line to follow. A word from distance abruptly solved the puzzle. “Hamburger” Oh right, it’s America. Of course they had hamburgers. As when Columbus found the new world, I couldn’t wait to find the line for hamburgers. The longest line in the dining hall didn’t seem long to me at the moment because I knew what to say to get the food. The process went more smoothly than I thought. Moments later, mission completed.

Since then, I had hamburger almost every day. “Hamburger, please” became almost all I said to servers. This reminded me of my American English teachers in China. They were having Xiaolongbao (see picture) in the food court all the time. I was wondering how they could possibly love it so much. Now I realized that was the only thing they could get there (You could just pick a pack without any words). I did better than what they did. I learned chicken-pad now and I believe I could eat more food as days went by.

Not only things I couldn’t get bothered me, but also things I had to eat.

It was about dinner time. Surrounded by all kinds of noises, I sat by myself at a corner of a long table. Nobody was talking to me and I didn’t really hear anything, either. My mind stopped working. My body was like floating at the middle of nowhere, with hands and mouth mechanically moving up and down. Five bowls, filled with raw vegetables, woke me out of my quiet and stationary world. I felt someone I knew sat around me. I lifted up my head, but only saw five rabbits…

For me, salad usually is pretty much the only thing that is considered vegetable and doesn’t taste strange. Other cooked vegetables simply extended my imagination and reversed my definition of food. When they first came into my sight, their perfect appearance, freshness revealed by bright colors, attracted me a lot. I was fooled. The taste was another story which had absolutely no relationship with their looking whatsoever. I thought it was unusual and hoped it would be better the next time. It was better when I tried again, but only because I had prepared for it. The worse thing was that you could not just use “it tastes bad” to describe them because they usually had no taste. No salt, no pepper, no sauce, they tasted like colorful solid purified water, even without taste of vegetable. It might sound impossible, but apparently, someone made it. Moreover, I bet someone was trying to reproduce that unbelievable job every day.

After several disappointments, I tried on salad. At least, I had had it in China and it didn’t seem much different here. It did a good job as vegetables, as I hoped. The most important thing was that it had taste consistently due to Thousand Island sauce that I put in. After few transitional days, I managed to swallow one bowl of it every day with the idea that perhaps it would become the essential of my diet. Every time I got to dining hall, salad came first. I did not realize what I was doing until some day I was talking about our pets with my Chinese friends. All of a sudden, green leaves and carrots looked so familiar to me. That’s exactly what I feed to my rabbit. The differences between me and my rabbit remained only that Thousand Island sauce.

I thought it was just me. I was wrong. Walking around the dining hall, almost all my Chinese friends ran out of choices but to become rabbits and that’s only the beginning. Actually, more and more of them had overcome the struggle of being rabbits. I thought they were doing this unconsciously, but when I asked “don’t you feel like a rabbit”, the answer was “what’s wrong with being a rabbit? If being a rabbit is the only way to survive, be a rabbit.” That’s true. I had to accept the new role and I would make all efforts to be a happy one.

Life is not easy all the time. Whatever the goal is, however isolated the hero is, external support is provided on most occasions in movies. Thankfully, I am not alone, either. I have a group of friends facing the thorn-like road together as well as people eager to help me. Maybe the next time I would bother you to teach me names of dishes; maybe someday I would show you Chinese ways to cook vegetables. I am just trying, with smile on my face.

Picture:
http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z=0&tn=baiduimagedetail&word=%D0%A1%C1%FD%B0%FC%CD%BC%C6%AC&in=6483&cl=2&cm=1&sc=0&lm=-1&pn=10&rn=1&di=1907271324&ln=2000&fr=