Lunch is always an exciting time at work. I plan all my experiments around lunchtime. Partially because I'm usually dying of hunger by noon but also partially because group lunch is a hoot!!
The people I work with are an interesting mix. There are people from France, Italy, Albania, Algeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, China, India, Canada, Chile, Columbia, and the UAE. I hope I didn't forget anybody. Anyway, the vast majority are from China. And there is nothing more fun than sitting with a table full of Chinese people discussing anything.
They always want to know what everyone else is having for lunch. "Oh what do you have today? Looks good!" Never before has my PB&J looked so exotic. Xiamin recently discovered pizza. He also discovered they were on sale at the grocery store. He looked like a kid on Christmas day.
I think it may be a cultural thing, but the Chinese do not appear to find money/finance discussions taboo at all. If you get a new haircut, they drown you in their admiration and of course they must know the cost. "Did you just buy a house? How much?" "Where did you get that spinach dip? Costco? Oh I love Costco. How much was it??"
Costco is another thing. Now, I love Costco. But there is something special in almost every Asian I've met that draws them to Costco like a magnet. In my old lab there were 2 Japanese postdocs and the first thing they wanted to do once we got to San Diego was get a Costco membership.
Aside from the Costco deals, exotic food and finance there are also great stories to be shared. A woman in my lab was raised in Communist China. She didn't learn english until she was 30. Wei wasn't allowed to play Mah Jong there so she doesn't even know how to. I think we need to get a lab Mah Jong game so we can play during the lulls.
I think I need more exciting lunches. They are expecting the PB&J now. I'll wait until the group gets in a rut. Maybe i'll knock their socks off with some soup or a burrito.
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10-12-06
I brought some tuna casserole today. The crowd went wild!!!!
The people I work with are an interesting mix. There are people from France, Italy, Albania, Algeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, China, India, Canada, Chile, Columbia, and the UAE. I hope I didn't forget anybody. Anyway, the vast majority are from China. And there is nothing more fun than sitting with a table full of Chinese people discussing anything.
They always want to know what everyone else is having for lunch. "Oh what do you have today? Looks good!" Never before has my PB&J looked so exotic. Xiamin recently discovered pizza. He also discovered they were on sale at the grocery store. He looked like a kid on Christmas day.
I think it may be a cultural thing, but the Chinese do not appear to find money/finance discussions taboo at all. If you get a new haircut, they drown you in their admiration and of course they must know the cost. "Did you just buy a house? How much?" "Where did you get that spinach dip? Costco? Oh I love Costco. How much was it??"
Costco is another thing. Now, I love Costco. But there is something special in almost every Asian I've met that draws them to Costco like a magnet. In my old lab there were 2 Japanese postdocs and the first thing they wanted to do once we got to San Diego was get a Costco membership.
Aside from the Costco deals, exotic food and finance there are also great stories to be shared. A woman in my lab was raised in Communist China. She didn't learn english until she was 30. Wei wasn't allowed to play Mah Jong there so she doesn't even know how to. I think we need to get a lab Mah Jong game so we can play during the lulls.
I think I need more exciting lunches. They are expecting the PB&J now. I'll wait until the group gets in a rut. Maybe i'll knock their socks off with some soup or a burrito.
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10-12-06
I brought some tuna casserole today. The crowd went wild!!!!
