The Cultural Hyphen (continued)
Eventually we all sat down to eat. It took about 10 seconds for the waitress to hand me a fork. This I promptly and defiantly sent back. Twenty seconds later she came back and started to pour tea for our table. My tea cup stayed untouched. Instead a bus boy came by and placed a glass of ice water before me. I poured my own tea.
We were halfway through dinner. I had not spoken a word. I never do. This is one of the reasons why I detest family get-togethers. The younger generation usually is alienated. By some strange force of nature, my grandaunt actually acknowledged me.
"So, Pe-tah, yoah muth-ah, she tell me you do very well in scool. Wat you plan do well you -eh-eh-eh for yor careeah?" My mother quickly jumped in as if to stop me from ruining her own reputation...
"Right now I'm really leaning towards music. I play the trumpet." I said this very proudly. I could hear the theme from Rocky blaring in my head. "Actually I was thinking more of playing jazz. Kinda like Miles Davis, or Louis Armstrong." The music began to fade.
"Oh... dat's nice too." She was looking beyond me at the platter of steamed fish that was just being set down on the table. My mother tried to salvage the situation...
"Wew, righ' now he tawk abou' myoo-sic, but yoo kno' how deese gen-ar-ate-shon is...."
It took me a few seconds to recover. "Excuse me, where's the restroom?"
I climbed the stairs up to the bathroom. An old Chinese man stood blocking the bathroom door talking on the telephone and smoking a cigarette.
