A Bowl’s a Bowl, Except When It’s Not
If a dish is the right size, shape and material for food, does that make it an acceptable food dish? Nope. Look at these two examples:
* When Patty and Rita, American volunteers in a Thai refugee camp, first arrived, they came upon some attractive plastic dishes that they thought were “perfect for salad.†However, when Thai personnel spotted these bowls on a communal dining table, they quickly removed them.
* Shortly after Dao arrived from Laos to join her Hmong relatives in Fresno, she purchased a bright red plastic serving bowl, but as soon as her American neighbor saw the bowl on Mao’s dinner table, she insisted that Mao not serve food in it.
What went wrong?
Patty and Rita chose the “salad bowls†unaware that these vessels were used exclusively for bathing purposes. Thais dipped these bowls into large urns of water and then poured the water onto the body. Because they were usually used for sanitation purposes, the containers were seen as inappropriate for food.
Dao’s error was in buying a dog food bowl. She did not recognize the visual clue of its wide base, designed to prevent the dog from tipping it over.
Theoretically, a bowl is a bowl is a bowl, but cultures employ containers in mutually exclusive ways. Humans and animals do not share dishes; what is used for hygiene is not used for food. While those within a culture absorb the subtle rules for containers at an early age, many newcomers only learn appropriate use after making innocent blunders.
Folklorist Norine Dresser is the author of “Multicultural Manners†(Wiley, 1996). Contact her through Voices or by e-mail: [email protected]
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