Saturday, May 13, 2006

Spoons are not just for soups

A week ago the editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday edition gave a discourse on the Filipino child immigrant to Canada who was corrected by his lunch monitor for using a spoon while eating his lunch. The mother complained to the principal but the principal said "Madame you are in Canada, you should do what Canadians do". Eventually the issue got attention of a Canadian NGO. Issues of racism followed. Personally, I believe it was really insensitive of the teacher and principal to punish a 7 year old for using a spoon making him sit alone when he uses his spoon. It affected the child so much so that he doesn't want to eat anymore.

Filipinos use spoons to eat anything and everything not just soups. It is a cultural thing. The priest in Claret last Sunday even asked "O who wants to migrate to Canada?" as his opening sentence for his homily. The priest said "we should forgive them for they do not know what they are doing".

I mentioned to Amats "kumulo talaga ang dugo ko ng mabasa ko yung editorial na yun".

Years ago in 1997, I was with a couple of French consultants. We ate at a local restaurant where we were given a set of spoon and fork. We ordered grilled fish steak but we did not order soup. Then one of the guys asked, how are we going to eat our food? where are the knives? I answered plainly, we use our spoons.

2 comments:

Amats said...

hi day 0;) here's a link from a canadian paper how the canadians themselves reacted to this outrageous incident. also see the long thread of comments after the article

http://www.westislandchronicle.com/pages/article.php?noArticle=6063

Daisy said...

Spoon Wars goes on...

The PDI ran a whole page on this issue under "Talk of the Town" May 14th Sunday Inquirer.