he's learning!

the first time i ever ate a meal alone with aswan was the time we were supposed to take a motorbike trip to jogja with some friends, but every single one of them backed out at the last minute. it was before i really knew him too well, but we both had some things we needed to get there, so we decided to go anyways. we stopped for lunch at a soto (chicken and rice soup) place in boyolali.

in indonesian culture, you don't talk while you eat. you eat. to talk would be to distract someone from eating, and that's just rude.

so as we ate our very first meal together, we did so in silence. i've actually gotten pretty used to this aspect of indonesian culture. i don't like to be interrupted when i'm eating these days. i mostly just scarf my food down. but having come from the boisterous family dinner time culture that i did, it was really rather awkward to sit across the table from a guy i didn't know too well but was kinda sorta starting to like and eat in total silence. really rather QUITE awkward. can't imagine why...

later on, in some conversation or another (still before we started dating), that meal came up, and i told him how awkward i had felt. and to do that, i gave him the background of my culture by telling him that one time my family was laughing so hard together at the dinner table that dad fell out of his chair and mom got mad at him.

there are some things that we are decidedly indonesian about in our relationship. but in this one area, aswan has decided that he wants to be more american. whenever we eat together, if we eat out or if we cook at home, everything else gets set aside at dinner time and we have a conversation with our meal.

for me, it hasn't really been a conscious thing. i haven't had to make a concerted effort to talk at dinner. it's my culture. aswan doesn't sit there and pump himself up every evening with some sort of "ok. i can do this. i can talk AND eat" pep talk. it just.... happens. we talk. about anything. about everything.

i didn't really realize how serious his commitment to this new way of life was until monday evening. sunday, while we were in semarang, i bought the dvd of the tourist. i really wanted to watch it, and where i come from, watching a movie during dinner is a special treat (mostly because i think mom was afraid we'd dump platefulls of food all over the living room carpet. the dining room table with its plastic cover was obviously a much safer meal location for children). so i asked him, "hey! do you wanna watch the movie while we eat?"

without missing a beat, his answer was, "baaaaaabe. of COURSE not. we have to talk!"