Dinner--with Friends

I knew they were Filipino by the way they held their forks and knives and, I must confess, if I hadn't been dining alone, I probably would never have spoken to them. But there I sat in a restaurant by myself on a Saturday evening in Richmond, Virginia, more hungry for some good conversation than I was for the tapas that I had just ordered.

Twice I almost took the plunge--but then bailed out. It isn't easy to start a conversation with absolute strangers even if they are sitting just two feet away in a cramped dining room and even if you are convinced that you spent thirteen years as a child in the country that they hail from. We like our walls, after all--and separate tables generally mean separate conversations. It's just the way we're wired.

Finally, I caught the man's attention for the briefest moment and the words spilled out.

"Excuse me," I said (with as big a smile as I could muster). "Are the two of you from the Philippines?"

I was relieved when they smiled back--and covered their mouths with their hands as Filipinos always do when attempting to speak while chewing food.

"Oh, yes," they said in unison--and, of course, they wanted to know how I knew.

"I knew it by the way you were eating," I said, "You were pushing the food up onto your spoon with your fork." And I mimicked the action.

They laughed out loud--and covered their mouths again.

We talked for a long while--about old Filipino songs and television commercials, about Filipino food and friendliness, about what it is like to grow up in a culture far removed from home. They were newly-married--less than a year. And they wondered about the impact that growing up in the US context might have upon their children some day. Would they still appreciate the rich heritage of the Philippines?

I tried to reassure them. "It really is up to you," I said. And I encouraged them to give their kids the advantage of being bilingual. I admitted that my Tagalog was much poorer than it should be--and they complimented me on my accent when we did talk briefly in that national dialect.

Then . . . it ended. It was a single meal out of the thousands that I will share with other folks across my lifetime. But it was a dinner to remember.

It was such a small thing--the way they pushed their food up with their forks onto their spoons. But it was that small thing that enabled me to recognize them for who they were--and that encouraged me to take the risk of engaging them in conversation.

Such moments don't happen often. I've generally got plenty of people around to talk to at dinner. And there is very little reason to risk a conversation with strangers . . . who actually wind up not being strangers after all.