Tuesday, 11 June 2013

Does eating garri and soup with hand, while others are using fork and knife, in a restaurant, gives one out as being odd?


A guy in a restaurant pushes away the fork and knife placed on his table, and starts using his hand to eat the garri and okro soup before him. Meanwhile, his friends on the same table with him are making good use of their utensils for their meals. Does that make him look odd – like some sort of village guy?  
Please kindly share your thought and opinion here. Thanks.

5 comments:

  1. I don't think anything is wrong with that. . . It's only a pretender that will see it as odd.

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  2. which kind village boi? i prefer 2 eat wit ma hand cos dere is dis ting dat maks it delicious wit d hands dan fork n knife. jus lik u eatin ekpang b
    nkukwo. its more delicious wit hand dan wit spoon dats 4 me.
    i avoid eatin eba in an eatery bcos me no go use dosr oyibo tings oooo

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  3. No I do not think it is odd to eat our traditional foods in our traditional ways, as it was meant to be. To me using utensils to eat soup and garri/fufu/pounded yam is odd. We need to stop this mentality of viewing our culture as odd and anything foreign as better.

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  4. Well said Mr/Ms Anonymous 4 July 2013. I completely agree with you. ‘Traditional’ is all too often viewed as something bad, uncouth, something to be despised. I live in the United States and had a similar discussion with friends a couple of months ago. My friends argued they will not give their children Yoruba, Ibo and other native tongue names because it will put their children at a disadvantage in American schools, society and in the corporate environment. Whilst I acknowledge it may be difficult for some westerners to pronounce , I believe it is our responsibility to educate and even joyfully enlighten them on the pronunciation and meanings. Authentic African art and artists are treasured and admired around the world, our names are another form of our ethnic expression. We can assimilate within any society without the price tag of losing our cultural and ethnic identity. You will never see a person of Indian extraction in corporate America change his or her name for western ease, No! Their intellect , education and proven record in the fields of business commerce, science, medicine, manufacturing and industry has opened doors widely for them throughout the world, at no cost to their native names. Vijay Patel has not changed his name to Robert Smith.

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  5. It is cultural, nothing wrong

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