Jellyfish: the cultural bridge

Jellyfish is best eaten under duress. Cultural duress. It should be eaten only in the firm knowledge that to say no might cause a war…or at least an uncomfortable silence.

It was amg and zaf’s first day working at the Department of (scary sounding official name) in the Ministry of the (something else scary) in the capitol of (an undisclosed Asian country). We wore the required business-formal attire, had the required slicked-back hair, and kept the required smile on despite the unbelievable mosquitoes. We’d shaken hands and semi-bowed to the required officials and sat at the required desk while excitable secretaries no older than twelve years old brought unopened bottles of water and a plate of fresh corn and giggled over our passports. We’d sat through the required scary-sounding departmental ‘military meeting’. Which just brought us to…the required lunch.

Yes lunch. As a bonus for getting through the ‘military meeting’, the entire department was being treated to the (undisclosed Asian country) equivalent of 6-foot subs and takeaway pizza. This was, in fact, a huge cauldron of boiled orange water set in the middle of the linoleum floor of an old conference room. Office workers in crisp white linen stood patiently with scoop spoon and chopsticks. Two large plastic shopping bags contained precooked noodles, and long green vegetables of dubious origin stood to one side. And on the other, the inevitable tentacles.

So far we had been so good. Four pepto bismol before each meal, no water in the mouth during showers, no street food, extra hosing down for the squat toilets, bottled and canned drinks only- and bottled outside of the country at that. There was brief, worried eye contact and a small nod as we decided to eat the stuff and die with cultural pride. A scoop of rice noodles, a scoop of fried tofu, thick liver pieces, tentacles, wrinkly gluten which actually turned out to be the jellyfish, green veg, topped liberally with red broth and brown sugar.

This is how you eat it: chopsticks in right hand but used only to scoop debris onto the spoon on the left, and then eaten from the front up. Little twelve year old secretaries across from you bring glasses of bottled water, tissues, and then more tissues when you accidentally use the first one for your nose. Complete silence at a long plastic table as government workers slurp their government supplied sea-stew. Occasional worrying comments from people passing through:

‘You bot look alike’

‘You have to understan that yoo are not in the United States now. This is (country X).’ This was said so fiercely that we readied ourselves for a cultural dressing-down, but instead, a shrug. ‘We are a little behind here’.

And the most worrying comment to hear from an extremely highly placed foreign government official (who insists that the two odd white foreigners call him ‘Jack’ after an old college nickname, a fact seems to be news to his politely tittering underlings): ‘I hope we are able to please you’

By a stroke of luck, I was able to hide my jellyfish in the leftover broth at the bottom of my plastic bowl. Amg wasn’t so lucky. He said it was oddly crunchy.