Sunday, February 02, 2003
EATING WITH NO TALKING
My family went out for lunch yesterday to celebrate Chinese New Year at (you'll never believe this) ...
Hometown Buffet! The rationale was that it would be too busy (and expensive) to go to a Chinese place. But that was only the beginning. And as is the Shen tradition, we ended up staying there a long time (usually over an hour). But this time, it was an all-time record of (are you ready for this?) two hours and forty-five minutes! Shoot, I could have almost finished Lord of the Rings during that time! My dad just kept going back up there again and again, followed by my uncle, then my other uncle, over and over again. You know how we Shens have to get our money's worth! =)
Obviously, I had a lot of time to kill there so I started looking around the place. I've always enjoyed the Norman Rockwell artwork they hang up so I was checking those out when I realized something about the people sitting in the booths below the artwork. There were about 8 booths there, all with couples in them, and almost all of them were dead silent. I mean, here we were, a huge Chinese family, being obnoxiously loud (another Shen speciality) and then there were 8 couples who couldn't muster up two measly words to each other. One man just ate while reading the newspaper while his wife just looked down at her mashed potatoes and chicken as she eat. They never said a word. Another guy just looked around the room while his wife sat there zoning out. Again, not one word spoken. This went on for 7 couples sitting in 7 booths. Finally, the last one had a young (probably college-aged) couple sitting on the same side of the booth, but still barely talking to each other.
What is going on here? Have we become so obsessed with our computers, email, cell phones, instant messaging, etc. that we don't even know how to talk to people face to face anymore?
Seeing this disturbed me greatly. So to make myself feel better, I got up to get myself some soft serve frozen yogurt.
My family went out for lunch yesterday to celebrate Chinese New Year at (you'll never believe this) ...
Hometown Buffet! The rationale was that it would be too busy (and expensive) to go to a Chinese place. But that was only the beginning. And as is the Shen tradition, we ended up staying there a long time (usually over an hour). But this time, it was an all-time record of (are you ready for this?) two hours and forty-five minutes! Shoot, I could have almost finished Lord of the Rings during that time! My dad just kept going back up there again and again, followed by my uncle, then my other uncle, over and over again. You know how we Shens have to get our money's worth! =)
Obviously, I had a lot of time to kill there so I started looking around the place. I've always enjoyed the Norman Rockwell artwork they hang up so I was checking those out when I realized something about the people sitting in the booths below the artwork. There were about 8 booths there, all with couples in them, and almost all of them were dead silent. I mean, here we were, a huge Chinese family, being obnoxiously loud (another Shen speciality) and then there were 8 couples who couldn't muster up two measly words to each other. One man just ate while reading the newspaper while his wife just looked down at her mashed potatoes and chicken as she eat. They never said a word. Another guy just looked around the room while his wife sat there zoning out. Again, not one word spoken. This went on for 7 couples sitting in 7 booths. Finally, the last one had a young (probably college-aged) couple sitting on the same side of the booth, but still barely talking to each other.
What is going on here? Have we become so obsessed with our computers, email, cell phones, instant messaging, etc. that we don't even know how to talk to people face to face anymore?
Seeing this disturbed me greatly. So to make myself feel better, I got up to get myself some soft serve frozen yogurt.
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