How to eat

I got this news from Lyn in France.

This incident annoyed me (eating with spoon and fork doesn't make us eat like pigs!) but then some people are really just ignorant of other cultures. They're traditionalists, I suppose, with superiority complex, but then so are we. Here in England, students who go to public schools are expected to eat the traditional way, i.e. with knife and fork. If you have fish and chips, or a traditional English Sunday dinner of roast and veg, you can't very well eat them with spoon and fork, can you?

For the seemingly educated people, they should understand and respect cultural diversity. For us immigrants, we should teach our children to be diverse as well, and not just act like the Filipinos that we already are. We should assimilate with the culture that we chose to join. We shouldn't pretend that we're still in the Philippines because we're not and if we are really that nationalistic and clingy to our roots, then by God, we should just go back to where we come from. Nobody forced us to exploit other country's financial opportunities and if we can't cope with what the Philippines can offer, then we should at least try to adopt to the culture of the country where we are settled. It doesn't diminish our Filipinonish.

Eating the Filipino way, i.e. with spoon and fork doesn't express patriotism. It shows inflexibility (if this term does exist). Our looks already make us stand out in the community of whites and the least we could do is highlight our presence to them by showing how different we are to them. We say, well, in the Philippines, Filipinos accept how Westerners behave. But then it doesn't mean that because Filipinos are laid-back and accepting that Westerners should be as well.

I feel sorry for that boy who went through such prejudice from his own educators who should know much better.