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We're back and we're kicking off season 3 with the following question: what food from your culture do you feel comfortable bringing to work? What's considered a delicacy, or a yum, might be viewed by others as a yuck. So how do you navigate that, especially at work, if you're the type that likes to bring your lunch to work? We discuss these and a whole lot more!
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts' Current Situations
00:00:05
Speaker
Check, check. How am I doing here? I think I'm OK. Yeah, I think you're OK. Hello. All right. OK. Well, welcome back to another season of Hidden in Plain Side, your podcast for all things Asian in the workplace. How are things going with you, Doug and Echo? I am enjoying my time as a full-time employee, not to worry about my PhD Studies for the past months or so. So I will definitely leverage this time to really think about what to do with the rest of the 20 hours per week.
00:00:44
Speaker
ah Thanks for asking, Jenny. I'm doing it all right. I know the economy is tough out there. I'm grateful to have a job. I'm grateful to be employed and, you know, allows me to do other things that are fun and meaningful to me, which is this podcast. And I'm so grateful to be back with you
Podcast Hiatus and Work-Life Balance
00:01:02
Speaker
guys. Cause I know we were on a break for, you know, a hot minute there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like two months. It feels like two months. All right. Yeah, yeah, it was too much. We're practicing what we preach. We were taking a break. We play hard and we work hard, right? Yes. and Or at least we should try. So today we're starting off with a pretty light topic.
Cultural Foods at Work
00:01:26
Speaker
We're going to be talking about food, food from our own cultures that we are comfortable bringing in or not comfortable bringing into the workplace or school. Just doing a quick check-in. What does your lunch routine look like right now?
00:01:40
Speaker
for both of you. Like in present day, 2024, Duck and Echo, what do you guys do for lunch? Echo, you want me to go first? Go ahead. So my new workplace is right next to a Trader Joe's and I go downstairs and I get two nectarines, a yogurt and a salad. That's so healthy. So that's your routine? Well, it's it's cheap too. And I go out to the park and I sit at the park and I people watch and I judge them. They don't know that. But i that's what I do because it's convenient and it's close. But I would say like afterwards, like after work, like
00:02:22
Speaker
Saigon Shack is in Washington Square. And I always am craving for and I go to that spot and I get a bowl of like most days I'm in New York. Really? and that That makes me feel less guilty because I had a salad for lunch. and meckerine on yeah I you. I had abundant luck that I don't need to worry about my lunch ah um during the work days because my company does offer that on site which I really enjoy and um the chef actually went above and beyond really trying to create a
00:03:07
Speaker
diverse set of the menu for for the for the for the cafe. I would say though, um even though they make tons of but effort, they they have like an Asian menu, they have a Natin menu, they also have like food from all over the globe. But as someone who is very critical about the food, um I sometimes also critic at the the Asian food they curated. Um, so they have like a sushi Tuesday or Monday, day something like that in the past. Yeah. I just have such high bar. Um, the amount of food that they provide, um, quality wise, um, I do think it's, it's a big cafe. So they offer food for, I don't know, like thousands of people on site. Um, but. I believe this is also the same thing that I heard from my other like
00:04:03
Speaker
a colleague from like Mexico or from like other countries complain about, is this is not the most authentic food they would ever recommend to other people, even though they have been very popular among the toys or the toys. um And every time they have like civetchi, there's always a long queue or a long line there. So yeah, I will say like foreign food in terms of the one that people don't normally get to choose if they were offered a couple of options have been quite popular in the cafe as I observed.
Cultural Sensitivities and Food
00:04:44
Speaker
Well, I work from home and I just eat my lunch at home. I just meal prep on Sundays. I usually cook fried rice or lentils, you know, curried lentils. And I thought about this the other day because as I was heating up my curried lentils, you know, my my kitchen, I know it's delicious, but my kitchen starts to smell like curry. And it reminded me of, you know, back in back in the day. You know, 10, 15 years ago when I was working my first job post-college, you know, I would bring my lunch to work and I remember, you know, making conscious decisions about what to bring and what not to bring. What? Why? Why, Jenny? Why are you conscious of what you bring or don't bring to the workplace?
00:05:34
Speaker
Well, I'm not that he asked that, Doug. You know, I'm Korean. And so we have a lot of pungent food in our culture because we like to eat fermented stuff and pickled stuff. And, you know, I grew up with those scents. And so walking into a kitchen that had all these like different smells from the different spices or different seasonings. I'm used to that but I know that that wasn't, that's not always the case for other people at work. And I remember like one one thing that my mom said and she did this consciously was when she was packing our food for school she would always pack like sandwiches or something like non-korean and it was because she was like I don't want you guys being picked on.
00:06:20
Speaker
Really? Was this like ham sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? like kind of Yeah, turkey sandwich. Not banh mi. Not banh mi. That was awesome, right? but It was very just generic we white American, you know, like lunchables, sandwich, you know, like carrots. And so, you know, I was able to blend in. But I also remember making those decisions at work. And I was just wondering what it was like for you, Dokken Echo. Can we pause for a second before we get to us? answer Can I ask you were you, at a young age, were you aware that like the foods that you could have brought into school would have had some sort of like reaction? Oh, yeah. I was. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. What would people say?
00:07:12
Speaker
i you Um, you know, I don't think I ever remember bringing like something pungent, but I do. There was like a day where we had bring like a food from your culture day. And I brought chapche, which is, uh, it's a type of glass noodle with iss very, very you know neutral. And I remember the kids being like, oh my God, what is that? What is that? Like kind of being grossed out by it because it looks like translucent. It doesn't smell, but it looks kind of weird if you've never had it before. But then they would taste it and they would be like, oh my God, this is so good. um But I was thinking like, oh, so you thought it was gross until you tasted it. You know, and this is something that's kind of like neutral in terms of smell. So I'm wondering, like, what would you have said if I had bought in kimchi? You know, and I never did that.
00:08:00
Speaker
So that's been sort of been my experience and you know I think from a a young age my parents always just said don't don't do that we're gonna coat switch we're gonna you're gonna blend in. no Okay interesting. So they were where? They were. And I totally forgot the question that you asked Echo and me after the follow-up. Well, what about you? So um you know it sounds like you you buy lunch at Trader Joe's now, but has this always been the case? Did you ever pack your lunch to work at school? a Yeah. So i um I love myself some sauteed shrimp.
00:08:37
Speaker
o and na And there's ah there's a vietnam ways Vietnamese way to do it called like thumb rim, which is like the sauteed shrimp in like fish sauce and all this. And you reduce and it smells funky and it tastes amazing. It also has its head still on it. Yeah, yeah that's what the good stuff is. and I was done with my master's, I was working at a research center and I was actually the supervisor at this research center and i yeah i my telephone interviewers actually went out for their lunch break and I came out and this was a little bit late, I came out um for a late lunch break as well too and popped my food in the microwave and brought it out and somebody saw that I had shrimp and the head was still on it and
00:09:31
Speaker
knew what it was, but still asked me what was it anyways. And I'm like, yeah, yeah this, this, and this. And she's like, is that head still? I'm like, yeah, head's still on it. but and i get Ew, gross. And and, you know, being the supervisor of like, well, I can't just like reprimand somebody in front of like all, you know, all the other folks. I'm like, you just hold it in. And I'm like, you know, after that, what I did was I just waited till everyone finished their lunch and then or dinner. And I had my my food afterwards because I really didn't want I didn't want that reaction. I didn't want to actually be put in a position where
00:10:09
Speaker
I became defensive and had to defend you know myself or or hurt somebody because they they didn't know how good it was. you know they I really thought they were missing out. I thought I made something really delicious and it really was. And i yeah I became more aware about what I brought and I modified my own behavior. ah to kind of, you know, either if you can't eat with some other folks, you know, don't reveal it. Or if you want to bring your own stuff that may cause some sort of reaction or whatever, just just do it after everyone else is done. So for me, that's that's been my kind of way yeah but I've kind of adapted ah to it.
00:10:50
Speaker
Echo, how about you? Yeah, I actually had quite of a different experience Just from what you two have shared growing up because I grew up in such a homogeneous place in China that I Don't think I actually even and and also like I went to boarding school um since when I was 12 so a lot of times like I don't really need to worry about what to bring to school for lunch because I always eating at a dining hall um or cafeteria. One thing that also came to my mind is ah when I started my study here in the stage, um I started like doing some internships at the companies in New York City. And even at the time, it was always like efficiency was the first thing that came to my mind. so
00:11:46
Speaker
But in context, like in China, there's always a lunch break for two hours. It's like mandatory lunch break. Growing up, like I remember when I was in elementary school, when i before I went to the the boarding school, and like we always like go back home and eat during the lunch break. So for example, like my parents will come back home, they will cook, or we just eat whatever had left from the previous day. And then we will take a half an hour nap at home. before we actually go to school again. and But here, there's no such thing, called like, well, we have lunch break, but normally you you would actually eat at your desk. And so for someone like me, who worked in a different time zone from most of my colleagues in the West Coast, my lunch hours are usually lunch meeting, where I literally like the eating while meeting with others.
00:12:38
Speaker
So non-story short, back to the the journey when I was starting the internships here, I realized efficiency was the one thing that I would actually need it because I don't have that two-hour luxury anymore for lunch. I will always go for something quick. So it's either a salad or chicken over rice downstairs. and That's probably my go-to place as a poor graduate student doing unpaid internships. oh um Yeah, so we don't like unpaid internships. Yeah, like the best thing at work for most of my internship was, oh, there's a free lunch meeting that coming that day where they have lunch bags for everyone. I feel like in this case, I'm kind of like naive in terms of what I can bring to work for lunch. And I often get questions at work where I got to pick where we we're going to eat.
00:13:36
Speaker
And when people given me the option, it's always the Asian restaurant that I don't like. And the colleagues will always give me an option on Asian restaurants only. And for one of the reasons now I'm reflecting upon those options, I was like, why I was the one that given all the Asian restaurant, why do they feel like I will pick those Asian restaurants as a food for for the team to die out? And the second piece here is like, why do people only give me those restaurants that I really don't enjoy? So that's something that I did started to realize might have something to do with the topic that we're discussing
Acceptance of Cultural Foods Over Time
00:14:20
Speaker
today.
00:14:20
Speaker
I love all the different perspectives that we have on this, because like for Echo, who came to the US to do school and internships and eventually full-time work, in a way, like this is her first exposure to like what can or can't I bring to work? And for like Jenny and I, right and now maybe I'll just speak for myself. Jenny, you can speak for yourself. we've kind of been At least I've been like, well, you can't bring that, even though it's delicious, you can't bring that. ah you know I'm totally with you, Jenny. i'd like I love
00:14:56
Speaker
ah fermented foods as well, too. And at a certain point, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, it smells nasty, smells gross. But man, when you get you get a taste of that, yeah that that smell doesn't doesn't bother you anymore at all. Well, does it smell nasty? I don't think it does. But maybe I'm just so I'm used to it. Like it's the fish sauce. It's the it's the fermented cabbage. It's whatever. I don't think it smells nasty. Oh, i I'm with you. I love my, you know, kimchi fish sauce as well too. But like, I guess for other folks that are not used to it, and and maybe it's foreign to them. And I don't know, Jenny, Echo, maybe you you both can chime in on this. Is it is it different now in the 2020s? Maybe in the 2000s or even like 90s?
00:15:51
Speaker
Now eating Vietnamese food is suddenly cool. Like now having a banh mi sandwich. i I feel like the moment of a white chef starts cooking your culture's food, then it suddenly becomes cool. So the moment like Brooklyn hipster started doing kimchi, then suddenly it's acceptable. The moment they started you know serving pho, you know, mainstream, then suddenly, oh, now it's cool. You know, one time that I read this, it's like a recommendation from a a cooking magazine, like people were talking about, oh, we actually introduced the Asian taste to this dish. And then I look at the ingredients where the recipe was like, we added a bit of like a seasonal oil. And they considered that as an Asian taste. I was like, okay, fine. So like the way that they interpret those things, like the thing that they think about, it's
00:16:48
Speaker
it's foreign to them are probably quite different from the people who are actually coming from that perspective. I cannot speak to the heat history since I haven't been here long enough to tell what it used to be, but what I can definitely testify what Jenny has shared it now, like eating Asians or eating anything foreign is a trendy thing that people think they they wanted to do something different from what they used to be doing. And I used to have a roommate who were coming from Korea, and South Korea. And another one is Italian American. I definitely remembered it's the vibe that we created. Like all of us love cooking and it's also a roommate situation. So this is not like a professional settings, but because we do develop that appreciation for each other's food,
00:17:40
Speaker
Like even sometimes um like my Korean roommates love to cook everything with garlic. And so every time when she cooked, the kitchen smelled like garlic for two days. And I remembered my other roommates and I were talking about her cooking, even though like for some people like garlic smell can be a little bit annoying, but because we developed that appreciation for the food and she actually invited us to eat every single time when she cooked. So there's no complaint from that. And from that experience, I wondered, um for those people who are really bothered by the smell, is that a gesture for us to even inviting them? Or will they actually be rejecting that welcoming gesture from from us? That I don't know. But um that just reminds me of
00:18:35
Speaker
like creating that culture that you wanted to share this thing with other people can be helpful, maybe in that situation. So it was a household of Korean, Italian and Chinese cooking. I mean, even Italian food, they use a lot of garlic. So I feel like, and also Chinese food too, you yeah a lot of garlic. Everything, scene pretty much. Sorry, echo you got me like daydreaming of like this like garlic confit as you were talking, and I'm thinking about how like this slow-cooked garlic would melt in my mouth. Maybe I'll be just hungry.
00:19:11
Speaker
so So joking aside, I think I may have shared this with you, but I don't remember if I shared this on the podcast, but I'll i'll just start briefly. So the reason I think this topic is so on the top of my mind is because I remember in my first job out of college, I was in the kitchen at work and um people would use the kitchen to heat up their you know lunch. and We had three, we call them testers, but but all of them were from India. So they were the ones who were testing the protocols and testing the code that the programmers would write. And they would always bring like curry or some sort of like Indian food and they would heat it up in the kitchen. And afterward, they would smell like curry, which I really appreciated. Right. Remember there was another colleague who was talking to one of her other colleagues and that and I overheard them in the kitchen and she goes,
00:20:04
Speaker
oh my god that smells so disgusting and what is it that they're cooking like why do they have to bring that here it smells so disgusting don't you think it's disgusting and that's when i realized oh that's a cue for me not to bring smelly food to work because that's been the reaction like if they're reacting that way to curry which i think is delicious maybe not like my fish sauce or my kimchi or whatever yeah i actually heated up kimchi in the microwave once at work I won't say where, it wasn't work, but somebody, coming and I was a close friend, so I said this person right. That's all I'll say, that's all I'll say.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, I actually, I was at this, One workplace where same thing happened, right? People would actually microwave. It was actually some sort of some type of curry that was there. And instead of like, i' i've I've actually heard some people were explicit about it. They're like, oh, yeah, it stank up the ah cafeteria. Other people will hint at, well, today I'm going to eat at my desk and they'll do it in like the subtle way. And I'm like, oh, what do you mean? And then I go into the cafeteria and I smell like, oh,
00:21:31
Speaker
that's what you meant. So it was kind of like, a you know I guess we're talking about yums and this is other folks yucking on some of the yums that we have. and ah In a way, like I guess some people do it explicitly and other people do it in a kind of more subtle way, huh? So they're not going to eat in the kitchen or the cafeteria, they're going to take that food. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to take my food back to Timadesse and eat it there, but they're not going to say it out loud. Speaking of this though, because I know some people when it comes to like food or eating habit, I know some people don't like like strong smell, not because they don't like
00:22:09
Speaker
that the foreign food aspects, it's just like they don't get used to that type of taste or flavor or scent. And I wonder how much is because they were less exposed to that type of saying, like not saying like they really don't enjoy the the the the food itself or the they look down upon certain food, but only because they just have lesser experience with those things. and they In general, the the stronger smell can be like, this is more like a physical, physical or physiological reaction to it. I love this. Our audience can't see this, but like, Echo's making these hand gestures. She's trying to be so like politically correct with this.
Public Perceptions and Open-Mindedness
00:22:57
Speaker
I've kind of died here a little bit because I'm like, Echo, you know, people eat like
00:23:02
Speaker
you know, ruffles like sour cream and cheddar and it smells like feet, right? And people still eat that in public. okay It's the way you react. So do you really have to downgrade and denigrate and insult someone's food as opposed to saying, oh, huh, it smells a little bit strong here. But you could say that about, you you know, cheese, like you said, and just have just be nice about it. Just be like, OK, so you know what? I'm going to just crack open the window or whatever. But don't be like at an asshole about it. Yeah, don't crack the window to crawl out. That's a bead. That's disgusting. it Also, I think people are probably better at about it now. I mean, who knows? But understand what it's like to be the other person, you know, a member of the minority group and then having a member of the majority group say that about your food. I think, you know, there needs to be a little bit of perspective taking there. So what um what I'm hearing from most of you is
00:23:59
Speaker
the way that people react to it. It's normal when people are having some reactions to those stronger smells that they don't get used to in the past, but it's the the actual reactions, like how they respond to those things make a difference. um And that has an impact on how what people bring to the kitchen, to the shared space? Yeah, I think you're right. Echo, you're right. I think the the mere exposure, and maybe for like Jenny and I in the 90s, like there wasn't that much, right, of like but ah Korean food or Vietnamese food that's brought to school or the workplace. But now you kind of see it everywhere, right? It's it's it's invoked to actually have
00:24:44
Speaker
that oh gosh token friend that can recommend their specific ethnic ah food to you and take to the places that ah they've been to and have tested and have given the nod to. right because Because we are pickier. and Maybe we are a little more critical about the the the food within our own ethnicity. And now they get to kind of enjoy that ride. I'm like, Oh, what's the best place for this or that? Right. So it is, maybe it is kind of a mere exposure thing. And the fact that maybe you get one person to get on board and they even, I can't say that word. They get the other folks on the bandwagon as well too. And they say,
00:25:26
Speaker
hey, come check this out. you know It looks weird. like There's pickled daikon and carrots in this, but it's going to taste amazing. right Check it out. you know And people will do, and maybe that's when people look converted. It's like, oh, the smell doesn't, the smell is strong, but the taste, the taste will be everything out. That does remind me of this topic, because I think a while back, because a lot of those conversations center around strong smell. And some of them smell unnecessary, the most pleasant one. One of the food that has that characteristic is this stinky tofu. I don't know if you too have experience with it. I mean, it definitely smells bad. And that's why it's called stinky tofu. But it tastes so good. Or at least I love to eat in it.
00:26:17
Speaker
But that does bring to this conversation is like, do we actually consider that a public hazard if we bring this to work i mean versus like we eat them, and we share with our friends, like, I guess what where is that line that we should be doing? One thing, like you don't be a disruptor to the work environment versus like, yes, everyone should respect other people with what they're eating. That's a good point, you know, what is or what should be the decorum when it comes to bringing in food to a common area, to to the workplace where there are other people. But I think, you know, the the point that I wanted to make was for so long the lines have been drawn by the members of the majority group who gets to decide, you know, what's acceptable to eat at work and what's not, you know, what are the smells that are acceptable at work and what's not.
00:27:12
Speaker
So I think it is um you know something to think about. I think times have changed where now it's a lot more acceptable to bring ethnic food to the workplace.
00:27:27
Speaker
One last word of advice to my colleagues who are ever be able to listen to this episode is like next time when you ask me to pick a restaurant it's better and if it's an Asian ah restaurant it's better be a really good because I have a high bar on the the food that represent my country, represent myself higher bar than some of the other restaurants. And don't assume just because you're Asian that you're going to want Asian food. Don't always ask the Asian colleague if you want to go to an Asian restaurant. Don't take me to a fusion place. Like PF Chang? Okay, that's my whole cat another can of words that we're not going to open it up today. All right.
Conclusion and Haiku
00:28:10
Speaker
So should we end with our haiku from chat GPT? We can do one now.
00:28:17
Speaker
I can tell a quick story while Echo's throwing something in there. So my sister, i and my mom too, every time we go back to Vietnam, it's always about getting like the shrimp paste and all these dried squid and all, and of course it stinks up the luggage, right? And somehow we we make it back and through customs and all that, it's great. And my sister, the one in California, will bring it to work, all right? And she'll get like the rudest comments and she'll say like, come over here. And she forces them to try it. She's like, shut up. Shut up. She like takes like a ah slice of an apple, ditches it into this shrimp paste, tells them to eat it like forcibly. They eat it, and they're like, oh my god, it's fantastic. And you're like, yeah, bet you can't get that anywhere else. And you know it's a it's like one of the ways like I think she she does it in a way that's like kind of funny and hilarious and like aggressive, but also like,
00:29:13
Speaker
makes people, other people in her workplace try it. And I guess those people are like also open to those experiences too. Yeah, it kind of alarms them. That's why I like that. And chat GPG does give us a haiku very quickly. And I do think it's very to the point. um i i My prompt was, give us a haiku on yams and yaks for bring Asian food to work. um And what it gives us us back is bento box delight, yams for those who knows the taste, yikes for eyes untrained,
00:29:50
Speaker
And I think I probably will give a bit of a twist to this one for the last sentence. It's probably not eyes on trend. It will be like nose on trend. You know what I want to say to that? Ooh, mommy. Ooh, mommy, yes, yes. Yeah. OK. Well, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Hidden in Plain Sight. We'll catch you later on our next episode.