Is it too cold sir?
Two days ago I was in Hip Asia, a trendy and ultra-modern pan-Asian resturant in Chennai, hanging out and pretending to be cool enough to be there while sipping a cranberry and pineapple juice served tall with crushed ice. It was all a bit too Tokyo for me to pull off, and so I was playing it low key and going slow on my juice.
The waiter then comes over to me and asks, "Sir, is your drink too cold?" I replied that no, it was too tart and so I was taking it slow while I waite for my satay. I figured that it was some sort of indication from the staff that I didn't belong there.
Today I'm in the Verandah (a word that came from India, btw) -- a much more low key cafe downstairs in the hotel. I'm driking a sweet lime juice (like an orange juice but with lime and lots of sugar) served tall with crushed ice, and just enjoying the day and a long slow sip. The waiter, who likes me a lot and stops by to chat on occasion, comes over and says, "Sir, is your drink to cold?"
I give him the stink eye and he becomes afraid. The staff here is terrified of pissing off Americans because we're so wildly unpredictable. See, we don't signal what we want by doing things like calling across the room to get a waiter to come to us, or making eye contact and a hand gesture to get the bill when we want it. We sit there quietly and wait, expecting that (as at home) the waiter will magically know what we want. When they don't we get irked, and tend to get snappy and pissy and rude. But things don't work that way here, so in their eyes we just sit there enjoying the day, and then get explosivly pissed for no reason.
So now my waiter thinks I've gone and done that American thing, and I ask him what, exactly he means by that. "The ice, sir" he explains, "it makes the drink very cold."
"Yes" replies I, dry "that is the function of ice."
He pauses a long moment, and then says, "For many people it makes the drink too cold."
"Gopinatha" says I, finally twigging on, "do you ever drink cold drinks? Drinks with ice or pop from a freezer?"
"No sir. Most of the people I know do not. We drink our water and soda much warm."
So yea, the waiter at the trendy place wasn't slagging me. He was really concerned that I was finding my drink too cold. I now need to go back and tell him, "In Canada/America the only time a drink is too cold is when it is a solid block of ice. Even then its okay if we can crush it up and make it into a slurpy."
Culture shock, it gets you when you're not paying attention.
The waiter then comes over to me and asks, "Sir, is your drink too cold?" I replied that no, it was too tart and so I was taking it slow while I waite for my satay. I figured that it was some sort of indication from the staff that I didn't belong there.
Today I'm in the Verandah (a word that came from India, btw) -- a much more low key cafe downstairs in the hotel. I'm driking a sweet lime juice (like an orange juice but with lime and lots of sugar) served tall with crushed ice, and just enjoying the day and a long slow sip. The waiter, who likes me a lot and stops by to chat on occasion, comes over and says, "Sir, is your drink to cold?"
I give him the stink eye and he becomes afraid. The staff here is terrified of pissing off Americans because we're so wildly unpredictable. See, we don't signal what we want by doing things like calling across the room to get a waiter to come to us, or making eye contact and a hand gesture to get the bill when we want it. We sit there quietly and wait, expecting that (as at home) the waiter will magically know what we want. When they don't we get irked, and tend to get snappy and pissy and rude. But things don't work that way here, so in their eyes we just sit there enjoying the day, and then get explosivly pissed for no reason.
So now my waiter thinks I've gone and done that American thing, and I ask him what, exactly he means by that. "The ice, sir" he explains, "it makes the drink very cold."
"Yes" replies I, dry "that is the function of ice."
He pauses a long moment, and then says, "For many people it makes the drink too cold."
"Gopinatha" says I, finally twigging on, "do you ever drink cold drinks? Drinks with ice or pop from a freezer?"
"No sir. Most of the people I know do not. We drink our water and soda much warm."
So yea, the waiter at the trendy place wasn't slagging me. He was really concerned that I was finding my drink too cold. I now need to go back and tell him, "In Canada/America the only time a drink is too cold is when it is a solid block of ice. Even then its okay if we can crush it up and make it into a slurpy."
Culture shock, it gets you when you're not paying attention.
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