To Have and to Hold
A little something from back in the day, for Joe on the occasion of his wedding.
Los Angeles is really big. Really, really big. Obscenely big. Our captain notified us 125 miles out of LAX that we were beginning our descent; 10 minutes later, all I could see outside the window was a carpet of surburbia extending from horizon to horizon. From a few thousand feet up in the sky, the city is like an endless sea of buildings, with only the occasional island of brown hills rising above the sprawl.
Joe, Eric and I ate lunch at a large, pink dim sum restaurant. Eric claims to have seen a non-asian person there. I think he’s full of lies– I didn’t see any myself. We ordered food off carts, drank Orange Blossom tea and talked about how much the atmosphere reminded us of our home countries. At the end of the meal, we wondered aloud if now was a good time to follow in the oftentimes embarrassing example of our parents and fight over who gets to pay the bill. Joe lost face in two cultures by not only refusing to offer to pay for the rest of us, but by also failing to contribute any money to the total after we decided we would settle the bill communally, like the barbarian Americans we’ve become.
Originally posted August 13, 2003
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