I could escape this feeling, with my china girl
She's finally back from maternity leave - and brought not only her 10 month old baby to meet me, but her husband, and two people who at first I thought were either her grandparents or her in-laws, but I finally realized were the live-in nannies.
First-off the baby? FREAKISHLY large! He was bigger than most two year olds. Considering that both D and her husband are around my height - I asked D if she was sure that the hospital didn't give her the wrong kid. She laughed and said that she had wondered that herself with her first son, who's 14 now and almost 6 feet tall.
Once again it was a lesson learned - don't let someone else order the dishes in another language, because you won't know what was ordered - or more important in this instance HOW much was ordered. I swear, D ordered enough food for a football team! She kept spooning food on my plate telling me to eat up. I got home and collapsed into a comma.
NannieGrampa didn't eat much of the prepared dishes, but shoveled down about a ton of rice.
Which brings up the rice issue. I've been to this place before with a group of people, and the restaurant only brought out a small bowel of rice for the table to share. BUT when everyone else at the table is Chinese (the waitress totally ignored my presence and acted like I wasn't even there - when I requested icewater, NannieGrampa had to repeat the question before she'd acknowledge it)? They bring out a GINORMOUS container of rice and keep refilling it. Which is fine because you know what? I don't think any non-Asian or person not raised in an Asian way eats as much rice in one sitting as my table-mates did. I might have porked-out on the mushrooms and tofu - but by shear tonnage they all beat me out in rice.
Speaking of tofu - apparently Ds husband doesn't like tofu. I told D I thought that was illegal and she was all "I know huh? An Asian not liking tofu - surely there's a law against it!"
Interesting note - even if you are Asian, you will not get ice water any faster in a Chinese restaurant. NannieGrampa's request wasn't fulfilled until we were more than 3/4's of the way done eating.
Finally - at one point, I looked up and realized that I was one-of-a-kind in the whole place. No other ultra-pale round-eye was in sight, and the only English spoken was at our table. I felt very lost alien for a moment and then I felt very sad that I probably won't get this lost alien feeling where I'm going as I've been repeatedly told that the only diversity up there is in sexual orientation. I love LA's people diversity and that I can totally be immersed into another facet of human culture like this.