Originally published at: If Asian people acted like white people in restaurants | Boing Boing
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As someone from Wisconsin I… I can’t really argue with some of it. sigh
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I recognize this behavior, but find myself confused about respectfulness vs. being an idiot in this situation:
I know it is rude af to rub one’s chopsticks together at an Asian restaurant, so I do not. I will take the wrapper and make a rest for the chopsticks of it, so that the food-touching tips stay off the surface when not in use. I refrain from shoving the chopsticks into my mouth.
Am I showing respect to the proprietors as I imagine I am, or am I guilty of cultural appropriation and being an idiot?
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You can also do the ‘no mayonnaise’ thing in Wisconson channelling your best Jackie Mason voice.
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God, I miss diners.
I moved from NJ to MA a few years ago, and thought: how different could things be? Well…
There are zero real diners in the greater Boston area. (OK, there’s one downtown, but if there’s no parking it might as well not exist)
Every time I think I might have found one that looks the part, the other shoe drops: these charlatans inevitable close at like 2 in the afternoon. Who goes to a diner while the sun’s out?!?
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hold on - that was some kind of Zoom background - she wasn’t at a diner at all. 
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As a white person, I’ve always erred on the side of being polite as much as possible. If it’s a custom or practice to do something, and I’m aware of it, I do it out of politeness. And if corrected, try to do better next time.
If you get the information through learning and respect, it’s okay, but if you are doing it to ridicule or pretend like you are part of that culture or have some deep understanding of it (but clearly don’t), then you are just being an ass 
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Rosebud in Somerville.
Brookline Lunch and Kelly’s in Cambridge.
And there are others in Watertown and Newton, etc.
(And I can think of more than one downtown.)
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Brookline Lunch and Kelly’s in Cambridge.
These are exactly those kind of closes-early-afternoon places I just don’t understand. Neither’s open past 3:30pm.
I start being interested in diner food around 10 or 11pm. Hell, I’d settle for a Denny’s but — none of those either. I guess there’s always IHOP.
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Not necessarily. This seems to be more Japanese and also if the restaurant provides good chopsticks. If the chopsticks are the cheap, splintery, wooden ones and restauranteurs are offended that you rubbed the splinters out, they are assholes.
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Have you ever just not done it even with the cheap ones? Because it doesn’t work. Pretty much all you accomplish is letting everyone know you think the restaurant is cheap.
(Source: I stopped after getting told off by a Chinese friend, never noticed a difference)
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I do it when it is visibly bad and splintery and I disagree that it doesn’t work. I also don’t really care if I’m letting everyone know I think the restaurant is cheap, especially if it is cheap.
(Source: I’m Chinese)
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Wow she musta really enjoyed her three weeks in WI during college, cuz she pretty much nailed it. Maybe she can do a fish fry (now I’m salivating) sequel episode next!
I can’t recall rubbing my chopsticks together… but always make a little rest from the paper. Unless they have a wasabi (cough horseradish!) trough for me to balance them on. Or better yet classy places provide a chopstick rest that’s concave to kept your filthy mouth sticks off the frickin table. Putting your chopsticks on the table is like eating your sushi directly off a hotel bed coverlet.
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in beautiful Queens, NY not only is there a diner on every corner, but they are all open 24/7/365. and every one of them has been rated “Best NYC Diner!” by one publication or another. pro tip: they are all exactly the same. thank god for diners!
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Waiter: Brings water.
Me: Thank you.
Waiter: Pours water.
Me: Thank you.
Waiter: Walks away.
Me: Thank you.
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It’s a placebo. You don’t wind up with a pile of splinters or saw dust on the table. Which means you aren’t deburring it. There’s also no mechanism to re-stick the splinters to the rest of the stick, so at best you are sort of bending them back into place. And even then: not really, because you cannot over-bend enough to get anything to stay.
Yeah. They are really just breakfast places. There a spot built in an old trolley in Malden that closes at 10pm, but it’s more of a burger joint than a standard diner.
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