The other night I did my first face painting gig by myself. All summer I would do balloons or paint with the clowns I work with, and eventually I was just with another assistant/partner in crime. However, this time I was 100% on my own, which made me kind of nervous because here's the thing:
I'm the girl who in fourth grade tried to draw a horse, and my own mother couldn't decipher what it was. I'm the girl who could only draw a picture if I did that thing where you draw a grid on it and then replicate the picture square for square. I'm the girl who chose to write the paper over the "artistic" option for school projects. Basically, I've never been artistic, but I've been working really hard this summer to change that.
And I do alright now--with face paint, that is.
So anyway, I went to my first birthday party for this Vietnamese girl. (Seriously, Asians have the cutest kids.) The minute I knew it was an Asian party, I knew it was going to be an Asian party. Here's the thing about Asians, they always seem to know all the other Asians in the area. For example, this whole party was Vietnamese. And they all spoke Vietnamese to each other. Guess who doesn't speak Vietnamese? Me. Guess who felt like an extreme outsider*? Me. I think I was just worried that they were talking about my face painting skills.
Everything went okay, and I think most of the kids were happy (except the girl for whom I drew a panda. That was just bad. How am I supposed to remember what they look like?? It's not like I'm Asian!**) I was about to leave when the mom insisted that I have cake. Then she insisted that I eat the extremely authentic food they prepared. I actually ate pork for the first time in over five years because I was so afraid of offending them. (I'm sorry vegetarian gods!) I even had this soup that I had to slurp really loud to show my approval.
Needless to say, I was there for an extra hour and a half just eating Vietnamese food and trying to make conversation. They had fun saying Vietnamese things to me and laughing because I didn't understand. Smile and nod; smile and nod; smile and nod...
It was a noche muy cultured.
*I'm not implying that they didn't have the right to be speaking their own language. I'm not one of those "This is Amurica!" kind of Americans. Rather, I desperately wished I could communicate with them in their language. Rosetta Stone? Don't mind if I do!
**That was pseudo-racism, I swear. (It's hard when you don't know who is reading this.)
2 comments:
YOUUUU ate PORK?! At a some random person's birthday party? There must have been some SERIOUS pressure, because I've seen you get pressured and man you are strong. PLEASE tell me it was good, worth it, all that jazz. Do you not feel the need to blog about the actual experience of eating meat for the first time in 5 years?!
You eating pork is just preparation for the mish.
And about the Vietnamese...should have called Bernard.
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