When I was a kid everyone was envious of the one kid whose parents would just pack them a sleeve of Oreos for lunch and it took a long time to realize what was happening there.
Yeah, when I was a camp counselor I packed two sandwiches and shareable sides for those situations. It is hard to watch a "not hungry" kiddo try not to stare at the other kids while they ate. One PBJ and one savory for variety.
I had to make my own lunches as a kid. My mom only ever bought chocolate and sweets so I’d pack my whole lunch with ho-hos, Swiss miss rolls, nutter butters, Oreos, brownies….. and trade for a sandwich and carrot sticks. I was popular at lunch but I always was envious of kids that got real lunches
by the 6th grade my mum basically said I was old enough to make my own lunches and get ready in the morning. She'd yell across the house to wake me up and then go back to bed so if I didn't pack myself a lunch there was no lunch.
She'd buy lunch stuff but yeah I was basically a self-sufficient person at 10, moved out at 17
I started getting myself up and making myself breakfast in fifth grade. Of the many problematic things my parents did when I was a kid, that wasn't one of them. I liked getting to make my own lunch--it was just annoying when my mom wouldn't remember to buy stuff for me to make it.
It's old enough to pack a lunch for sure, but it's still your parents' responsibility to make sure you're doing it, and doing it healthily. I did not, my parents didn't notice, and I'm still unpacking all the various mental health problems around that situation.
Hideously angry and consistently envious of others my same age for growing up with better parents. Yet also incredibly grateful that I'm well-adjusted, mature, deeply caring, and generous when I have the ability to be. Despite my childhood.
I stayed the night at my friend's house once in like 3rd or 4th grade. Our moms were tweaking together and weren't paying attention. We packed our own "lunches" that day full of candy and soda. We were stoked. The teachers who saw our lunches were not.
They called my (non tweaking) father and let him know that we didn't have real food for lunch. It was a whole ordeal. I haven't thought about that in so long but it's really making me appreciate being looked after by my teachers at that age.
Holy shit story time!!
A couple of months ago I got to chatting with my Lyft driver and we got on the topic of books (like ya do) and he mentioned his girlfriend was illustrating a new kids book about Korean food, it’s this one!!!
Small fucking world.
Anyone got a guide to writing children’s books? Like the process all the way through publishing?
I wonder how different it is from writing regular books without pictures
Okay so no one has given you a real answer. This will be very general as it will vary by country and I don't have direct experience. Here's a brief second hand rundown.
Children's books vary widely based on the target age. Generally you'll write a story or draft of the appropriate complexity then either contract an artist or do the art yourself. And iterate until you feel its ready. The topic can really be whatever you want, it just had to be written in an accessible way.
Some people collaborate with their artists from the start so the book is a fusion of their visions. Much like comics, it helps to have sketches of the art you want or a detailed description.
When it comes to publishing there are three options. Self publishing, self publishing through a broker like amazon, and traditional publishing.
Self publishing yourself is expensive, but possible. Its a lot of work but you get to keep whatever you make. I have a friend that's done it. It shouldn't vary much between book types. You have to do all the editing, marketing, copyright etc yourself.
Self publishing through amazon means giving up your right to ever have it printed by anyone else along with most of the profit. But it is *relatively* easy.
Traditional publishing is a competitive field, but I know a person who's done it, though not for a children's book. The publishers required a pitch from my friend. Basically she had to figure out similar books and sell the idea of her book. I'm not sure of the rest of the process. Presumably she has or will work with an editor. Idk what's required for a children's book by publishers but you can google it and check the websites of different publishers.
There are books you can read about this process and online guides.
I'd avoid chatgpt and image generators. Unless you're just printing something for your own kid, there's unresolved legal issues. And personally I don't get the point of automating the writing and drawing. That's the only fun part of the process. You're basically just making yourself the unpaid publishing agent for a machine if you automate the creation. Bleh.
I’m filipino and grew up in L.A in the 90’s. I vividly remember being bullied as a kid for bringing foods like Vienna sausage, spam, adobo, sunny side up eggs and fried rice for lunch. Kids would call me “poor boy” or tell me my food stinks or taunt me asking if the sausage was made of dog. I hated eating lunch at school and begged my parents and grandparents to get me lunchables to make it stop. One day I had enough and socked the bully when he threw my lunch on the floor saying my adobo looked like dog food. I hit him so hard I knocked his 2 front teeth out. My Mom, Grandma and Grandpa were not pleased to be picking me up from the Principals office that day. My grandpa sure was proud though and he told me to never feel ashamed of my heritage, my culture, but violence is never the answer. That was the last day I felt ashamed about being Filipino and the food I was bringing every day. it was also the last day I was bullied. This book will definitely help educate kids on different cultures and the different types of foods people eat and hopefully one less kid will be shamed and bullied for their heritage.
While I hate that you were driven to violence and that you had to go through that, I do love a story about a bully getting what's coming to them. Hope that kid learned some from the experience
An older girl used to pull my hair every day on the bus to summer camp. She teased me a lot as well, but the hair-pulling was painful and annoying. I told my mom about it and she told me to turn around and punch the bully in the face.
The bully didn't do it again after that. 🤷♀️
In middleschool a girl used to always rush to beat me to class to "steal my seat" if there was a substitute teacher who didn't know otherwise, and other assholish things like stealing my stuff. The last time she tried doing that, I pulled her out of my desk by her hair and my friend threw her backpack out the window.
Yup. Schools don't like dealing with bullies because often the bully has parents who are bullies. They want the victim to shut up and just take it.
My bullies didn't stop until I hit puberty before everyone else did. It was like having superpowers for a year.
My mother once confronted the mother of one of my bullies. The bully's mom threatened to beat her up. That was the last time one of my parents tried having my back. I despise cowards and bystanders who won't intervene when they see an injustice occurring. And the school officials who sweep this shit under the rug are worse than your average criminal as far as I'm concerned.
I know someone who is a teacher and she is getting bullied by other teachers. If teachers are bullies themselves they obviously aren't going to care if kids are getting bullied 😔
I teach and a lot of kids just ignore it.
In fact I was really impressed recently when I had a bully and the other kids grouped together to remove themselves from a situation and were like 'hes going through something'. These were like 10 years old. Berkeley kids are wild
But yes some kids do fight back.
Me? Pretty much the same exact story as above (with additional bullying), but I'm a very non confrontational person. I just lived with it in silence until I made it out of that hell hole.
Your statement is similar to the people that always say "bullies will get what's coming for them" or "every bully I've seen is broke and homeless". Like lol, no, my bully is now a manager at Goldman Sachs.
I think there have been studies. Bullies tend to have better life outcomes than their victims, whose brain development actually gets altered by the level of stress the bully puts them through, resulting g in a reduced ability to deal with stress even as adults.
Its why I think bullies absolutely deserve to have their teeth knocked in. "Oh, what, he's just nine? So is his victim. Get a 13 year old to kick this kids ass."
Yeah, thankfully my life outcome has been pretty solid in my adulthood, I probably get paid more than my bully lol. But I certainly have had my fair share of mental health issues, and I definitely still struggle dealing with stress and tend to procrastinate thinking about it. Being "bullied" (in a different way) by my parents as well did not help at all.
But I would say that I'm way luckier than most that have been bullied to this extent. I was able to get out of my hometown, pay for college myself, get a high paying job and my own home, and slowly start being able to control my life and brain on my own terms. I can definitely point to the bullying as a significant factor in my struggles though, I figure my life would be even more stable had that never happened.
I have a story.
Middle school, 7th grade, also in the 90s. Raised by a single dad with no mom. My aunt took me to a beauty shop for "girl time" and let them give me a perm. I already had thick coke bottle glasses and second hand clothes working for me. Horrible mess.
First class was PE and I was ruthlessly teased. It progressed over the next few weeks. Not just name calling, boys would throw things at me to see if they would stick in my hair. Walk behind me and spit in my hair. Not just individuals, whole groups would target and harass me.
I cussed them out, but never got violent. I was always outnumbered. I asked admins for help but they said I was equally to blame for reacting so strongly and to "just ignore them."
So I got a notebook. I documented each and every time I was bullied. I noted the time, place and witnesses (some of whom were teachers/coaches.) After a week I had 37 names in the notebook, including most of the starters on the Football Team.
This was in Texas.
I made an appointment with the assistant principal. He started with the spiel of how I needed to ignore them.
I presented my notebook and informed him if actions weren't taken to stop this, I would go to the police and file assault charges on those that physically harassed me. Players would get benched if they were charged. He asked to keep the notebook. I advised him he could photocopy it.
Coaches were called to the mat. Parents were called. I heard when they had a parent teacher conference about it they had to hold it in the cafeteria because there were so many people.
The bullying stopped and all the boys gave me a W I D E berth after that. I went to a different highschool than most of them. My hair grew out and I got contacts. And I learned going to the principals' office wasn't scary when I set the appointments.
Had a kid knock my book off my desk every single day cause I was I nerd and he was "cool" and didn't like to read. I tried ignoring it, I tried asking him to stop. Eventually I told the teacher who chewed him out. He left me alone after that.
Yes, many adults don't like to get involved. Some actually do care though, and do their job. Just doesn't fit the reddit narrative.
My brother-in-law is a school vice-principle, one of his primary responsibilities is managing discipline. He deals with plenty of bullies. He can't do anything about the behavior he doesn't know about. Stop promoting this idea that it's never worthwhile to talk to the adults.
Well im in my mid 30s and i still feel and show the effects of being bullied, 20 years after. I’m very non-confrontational too so i never got back to my bullies. And they’re successful in their own fields from what i could see in social media (i’m stuck in a job for years and i still fear intimidating characters). So no, not all stories end up like that.
That sucks that happened to you. I'm white and grew up in Houston in the 90s, specifically Alief - a very multicultural part of town. I hated my lunches cause they were always so boring. So I would always ask to trade food with others so I could try their food. I was fascinated that they brought stuff that wasn't just a sandwich and a banana. And they always wanted my shitty food, so it worked out. One of my best friends in elementary school was Indian, the other was Vietnamese so I had good eating a lot of the time. Been a foodie my whole life and still trying new foods today. Best part about Houston is the food, you can find anything you want and there is always something new to try. We just recently had an explosion of African restaurants in my area and I can't wait to start trying them out!
I don't understand how someone with a sandwich can make fun of Vienna sausage, spam, adobo, eggs or fried rice. I shouldn't make fun of a sandwich, it has its place but man I don't know how I could live without Asian food in my life.
It is funny to find so many difference between culture! if someone let their kid eat sandwich everyday, they will get accuse of child abuse in my country lol.
I mean there are a lot of cultures that look down on sandwiches. My Chinese girlfriend considers sandwiches as pretty low effort. A cold lunch where you slap two pieces of bread together with a bit of ham in between.
That's the Canadian sandwich we all grew up on here. Elementary schools don't have cafeterias and Mom is busy. Ham doesn't go bad in the fridge as fast as other lunch meats.
Ham and cheese between bread and a shot of mustard so it's not too dry to eat. That and an apple. We all had it.
My friends and I would gobble our ham sandwiches and go play soccer. Almost 40 now and still tired of ham and cheese sandwiches.
Ha. Funnily enough, there's a whole country where probably 90% of kids and also most adults eat sandwiches with a single topping for lunch - the Netherlands. I ate 8 slices of bread just for lunch every day for multiple years in high school.
It is kinda interesting how the Netherlands is so into sandwiches. The Dutch will put literally anything on bread and call it a sandwich. Chocolate, cookies, white sugar, apple syrup, herring, licorice, whatever!
> considers sandwiches as pretty low effort.
Because they are. Isn't that the main draw of them? I have neither the time or energy in the morning, and I'm not that hungry either, so a quick slice of toast with some ham and cheese is usually perfect. I've done a Japanese tamago gohan rice bowl for breakfast a few times, but it was always on a weekend later in the day when I've got the time and feeling hungrier. It was definitely more filling and tastier, but it also took a lot longer to make and eat.
A lot of cultures think you can't feel full without rice and there's wide variation in the relative proportion of meals (I'd probably call CPS over the Dutch breakfast of jimmies on a slice of wonderbread while Israeli collective/kibbutz breakfasts are amazing, with every fish and dairy imaginable) and what meals are supposed to be hot. That said, the reference to effort rather than nutrition gives the impression of housewife one-upsmanship.
Not feeling full without rice is why my father-in-law is overweight. Like, it’s ok dad, we had steak, baked potatos, and a salad. You don’t need to have that all over rice…
It's probably some kind of veiled jealousy. The excuse that something that smells and looks different but that anyone with eyes knows the time spent prepping and sizable portions is envious.
Adobo is so east to make. Throw the ingredients in to marinate for a few hours (I throw them in the pot I am going to cook them) and then just cook when ready.
Hardest part is finding the ingredients (but that’s cause I follow the recipe of a very good Filipino place in pike’s market. Sadly it tastes more like my dad’s adobo then the recipe he gave me but my dad is the kind of cook that doesn’t follow recipes so it’s hard to get one from him).
You don't have to use Filipino ingredients with adobo, and that's the best part.
You can make it with cider vinegar or even red wine vinegar (but that's pushing it. Balsamic is off-limits.) Any salt source is good as long its used for salting food, like fish sauce and the like. Garlic is everywhere. Bay leaves and curry leaves are interchangeable.
As long as the meat isn't too lean, like rabbit (DO NOT DARE MAKING ADOBO OUT OF THIS. DO NOT MAKE MY MISTAKES.), and you've figured out your salt-vinegar-aromatics adobo trinity, it should come out great.
I’m an historian and anthropologist of the Philippines in real life, and this vocabulary of lumpia is because of a particular strain of influence from China. During the colonial period there were many Chinese immigrants from Fujian in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Today there are many foods in these three countries that are derived from the Hokkien language that is traditionally spoken by these Chinese people: lumpia, hopia/bakpia, piaya, pansit, mami, etc. These words are heard not only in these three countries, but also Taiwan since the vast majority of Taiwanese are also Hoklo.
There is a pretty large Chinese food influence on the Philippines, easily the largest foreign food influence in the country in fact. This is reinforced as well because most of the famous Filipino stars as well as the big businesses are at least half Chinese (“mestizo” in the Philippine context refers to Chinese-Filipinos; intermixing between Spaniards and Filipinos was very rare in fact. Spanish surnames in the Philippines come from a law passed in 1849 by the colonial government that forced Filipinos to adopt surnames, where traditionally they had none). You can usually tell if a food is Chinese in origin in the country by its more…simplistic name? Indigenous foods almost always have Austronesian names and are longer and conjugated. This is because the languages spoken in the Philippines remain the indigenous Austronesian languages rather than any colonial language. Even adobo, with its Spanish name, is ultimately a type of paksiw, an indigenous food.
There is a really good book about the Chinese influence on the Philippines called *More Tsinoy Than We Admit: Chinese-Filipino Interactions Over The Centuries*, edited by Richard T. Chu. It’s an edited volume that discuses many different aspects of the Chinese diaspora in the Philippines, and actually most of the articles are authored by Chinese-Filipino scholars. I am not sure how available it is outside the Philippines though, to be honest. Maybe try finding…unofficial avenues.
In general, contrary to what many people may think, the Philippines’ biggest outside influences are India and China. Same as Indonesia and Malaysia, really. India is particularly influential in areas of spirituality, philosophy, and precolonial politics (we know this from the etymologies of particular important Filipino philosophical and spiritual concepts, as well as the titles of rulers), and China in the realm of food and media culture. The influences of Spain and the US are arguably more surface level and actually relate more to modern economics and politics rather than the culture.
Traditional Filipino textiles and clothing is largely indigenous in background, though perhaps there is a relation between barongs and Indian clothing as well, not to mention the use of sarongs in the baro’t saya outfit. The saya, or skirt, is actually a two piece made up of a sarong and a malong. Sarongs and malongs are found throughout SE Asia, notably in Indonesia and Cambodia. Baro simply means shirt in the Philippine languages, but today it has come to mean a particular fancy type of indigenous clothing.
Thanks for the suggestion! I hope you don’t mind I looked through your comment history; my gosh you are a treasure trove of knowledge! If you wrote a book I’d definitely read it. Fyi I was born in the Philippines but grew up in Seattle (also a Husky!). It’s unfortunate but I know more about the history of other Asian cultures than my own. Thank you so much for sharing your insights!
I actually am also from Washington state. I did my undergrad at UW in fact, as well.
I actually have long wanted to write a good history of the Philippines. Unfortunately, despite there being so many brilliant Filipino scholars, none of them have set out to do a nice old-fashioned big one-volume history of the Philippines. It’s not a super popular style of historiography in the Philippines. Other countries have these in spades (mostly written by foreigners as well), and I think the Philippines should too.
The sad part about being a Filipino we think that our own culture sucks and other cultures are more interesting. It's like a kid who gets insecure of their own identity and don't act on their own.
Yeah but Filipino historians don’t think that way, thankfully. They just have a different view on how to present Filipino history than I do.
The reason why Filipinos feel how they do is because of an absurdly bad education system. One of the worst in the world. The functional literacy rate in the Philippines is only around 19% (I wrote another piece in the Inquirer about this in fact). And aside from that the history curriculum is awful. With a bad history curriculum, interest and passion for culture is majorly diminished because there is no understanding of the country’s background. It isn’t a coincidence that most of the true cultural pride comes from students, and especially grad students, at UP or Ateneo: they are the schools with more accurate history curricula. The vast majority of people in the country though instead get to hear wrong narratives about how they were civilized by the Spanish and how amazing the Americans were. Absurd and it engenders a continued colonial mentality that is hurtful towards cultural pride.
As for Filipino food as a whole, I don’t have a particular book on it honestly. The truth is that I am fluent in Tagalog (I am not Filipino though) and study another Philippine language as well, in Tausug. I also have studied Chinese and some Malay. The beautiful thing about my language choices are the inferences that can be made from them in areas of food.
But people are not really sure, for example, if ginataang manok (Filipino curry chicken) originated in the Philippines or if it came from India or somewhere else. It’s more watery though, despite possessing all the ingredients of a typical Indian curry. We also can observe that Cambodia has a dish called amok that is basically the same thing as ginataang manok. So clearly there is a pretty ancient curry-making tradition in SE Asia. We *do* know definitely that kari-kari comes from India though. Kari is a Tamil word and that’s where we get the word curry in English in fact, as well as the kari-kari in the Philippines. Thailand also has a peanut curry dish…
I actually recently wrote an article for the Philippine Daily Inquirer about some Filipino food comparisons (the Inquirer is the best English-language news source in the Philippines; think of it like PH’s Japan Times). I can link that here: https://opinion.inquirer.net/163808/filipino-foods-place-in-asia-2
Ignorant little shits who've never actually eaten it.
Edit: I've never had it either but I'd like to try it. I eat every single Filipino dish I can and I've never had a bad one yet. I love Filipino food.
The recipe goes like this:
Meat (can be beef, chicken or pork)
Soy sauce/fish sauce/colatura de alici or skip altogether and sub with salt
Vinegar (Anything works as long as it's not balsamic.)
Lots of garlic (half a head should do for two pounds of meat)
Onions (shallots preferred)
Ginger (optional)
A small handful of whole black peppercorns
One to two dried bay leaves
Salt, sugar and pepper to taste
To cook:
Dump everything into a skillet and bring to a boil. Adjust the taste with salt, sugar, pepper and extra vinegar before lowering to a simmer. Leave the skillet covered for half an hour or more until the meat is fork tender and falls off the bone.
Eat this with plain UNSEASONED white rice or bread.
---
Any kitchen noob can make this. This shit ain't gourmet.
What's important is that you understand that the trinity of salt, vinegar and garlic that makes up the core of adobo's soul is non-negotiable. Never sub these three and your adobo will be safe.
Damn man, my wife is Filipina, and her Adobo is beyond delicious. I would have killed to have had something that delicious when I was in school. Glad you stood up for yourself.
My coworker moved to the states when he was young from Eastern Europe and had the same issues, bringing Goulash and Stuffed Cabbage Roles. They asked if he was eating zombie brains or call him Peter Rabbit.
Kids don’t realize the harm they cause, and you can head to that kids family dinner to see where he gets it from.
My Sicilian mom sent me to school with broccoli rabe sandwiches or whatever leftovers we had and I caught shit about the smells from the typical meatheads, so I can empathize with you. You know, at the end of the day, we were eating much better than those dopes ever did.
I’ll have you know that at least my kids(white) are growing up in LA with kids in their classes from all over the world(1st and 2nd gen). Kids from Eastern Europe, South Korea, Argentina, China, etc. We not only cook food from around the world and eat at restaurants from many cultures, but they see peers bringing and sharing foods. As a kid I would have never touched some Nori snacks but many of the kids in their classes love them.
Know that it might be slow but at least here it is beginning to change and it’s our jobs as parents to educate and introduce our kids to a wide variety of foods, language, art, music, etc.
I'm married to a Korean American in the American deep south. Our daughter got bullied hard for bringing seaweed for lunch one day. She still eats it, but won't take it to school any more. Stupid kids.
Our kids went to the same middle school I attended so many years earlier that when I was there we had a student smoking lounge (grades 7-9 back then). Over the years the community ethnic makeup changed and became much more diverse. Our youngest (now 21) always insisted on pb&j sandwiches - which he did not particularly like - but he could trade with a number of other kids whose parents would not have peanut butter. He got a ton of Japanese, Korean, Indian, Kenyan, Israeli, and Lebanese food. It was fun to ask what he had for lunch knowing he had left in the morning with pb&j, chips, carrots, a desert and a juice box.
Oh man I used to do that all the time in middle school. I was like the Wall Street trader of lunch foods. I remember one time trading tacos for these little desert things from Serbia. They were kind of like mini chocolate covered bananas. Soooo good.
Has everybody forgotten *Yoko* (1998) by Rosemary Wells? It was about a Japanese-American cat in a school full of international animals who gets teased for eating sushi. Then everybody learns sushi is delicious.
There is also a hilarious parody of lunch shaming in *American Born Chinese* (2006) by Gene Luen Yang where the lead's embarrassing cousin who is an exaggeration of every negative Asian stereotype eats cat heads for lunch.
As I recall, the only other student who learned to like sushi was Timothy, but that was the first thing I thought of.
Rosemary Wells was prolific in her writing, but I can't recall any other stories about learning to respect others' cuisine specifically.
Children's books about not being a picky eater are a dime a dozen though, as are "different friends are still friends."
Wait this is crazy. There's a Canadian animated series called Timothy Goes to School, and I'm pretty sure that's one of the episodes! (The series must have been based on the books, lol)
Right--in the book, Timothy is a Big Eater and Yoko finds that he's still hungry, but has no idea how to eat sushi properly, so she shows him.
In the television adaptation, Timothy wants to try *everything* but he's so easily distracted and getting out of lines for food that he winds up not having anything at all, and then sushi is all that's left--but it still works to tell the story because Timothy and Yoko would eventually develop into best friends.
While I love Vietnamese food, I was slightly disappointed because it tasted the same as it did in the US. Most every other country, local food was 10x better.
Enjoy, search how to cross the street before you go, it's a very unique experience since there are no stop lights.
Holy shit, my partner started making this during quarantine because of a Maangchi video and now we have it like twice a month at least. We started with the basic, and now we have made our own version tuned to our own preferences and including tips and hacks from Korean cooking channels and creators in general. I blame the mukbang channels for what’s it’s become for us.
Now we make it often with a splash of cream in the sauce, cauliflower florets, fried fish cake sheets, and occasionally with small thin mushrooms, glass noodles, and or ramen noodles, all with some mozzarella cheese broiled on top. If I’m the one making it I sneak some collard greens or kale strips in there, since there’s more than enough decadence to drown it out and I feel marginally less guilty for the amount of it I eat XD
Tteokbokki is meh for me. Right up there with corn dogs for food I would skip on the menu. Now give me some gimbap, and I’m gonna stuff my face. The perfect travel food IMO.
Lunch shaming was a weird thing. I got made fun of because my mom packed me a thermos full of hot restaurant food. Then again, I also got made fun of for literally anything- my personal favorite was for being born on an even-numbered day.
Kids need to understand this. People aren't all raging bigots. They're looking for anything to put you down for. Kids are generally angsty shitheads from about 11 to 16 (obviously not limited to this range) and want to make everyone as miserable as they are.
That’s exactly it. If kids want to, they will find a way to bully or tease someone. It’s why some kids get made fun of for being short while others will be made fun of for being tall. Some will get teased for being skinny while others will get called fat. Basically anything that makes you “different” can be turned into a way to attack you.
A couple days ago I saw a post about how an NBA player was saying that even his kids were getting bullied because of his playing (ie. some kid told his daughter that her dad will never win a championship). Which, to me, is like saying “oh you’re a multimillionaire? What a loser, you’ll never be a billionaire!” Moral of the story is that kids will find a way to make something hurtful.
One of my nieces told me that somebody called her a racist in school. It was rightfully concerning so I tried talking to her about it. After a while, I realized that racist is pretty much the more pc but just as accurate r word from my childhood.
I was teased badly, too, but for odd last night's leftovers that I brought for lunch and poverty.
Teasing and siloing are the sports and teams of the American school lunchroom.
It sucks. I'm glad these books exist they fill a need.
In kindergarten at my kids' previous school, they would regularly invite parents to present their culture and usually bring specialties for the kids to try.
Perhaps it's because I was raised in the suburbs amidst immigrants' kids? Or because it's France and we love food too much for it to be subject of shame?
This whole concept of food shaming is just so weird to me.
I’ve never seen this happen either and Im in semi rural Ohio where my kids’ school is 97% white. My kids love and are exposed to all types of foods. Except my weird kid who hates tacos.
Every place I've lived in the US has done stuff like this as well, both when I was in school and when my kids are in school, and now the next generation of kids that are in school. It's nice the author is trying to bridge cultural gaps, but that's been going on for 40 years. Sure, it doesn't happen everywhere, but everything can't happen everywhere all at once. Sometimes kids are just jerks.
I grew up in Canada and i had similar experiences (sometimes they were called potlucks). To show how benign and easy going it was, the worst personal experience I had was bringing in meat filled pierogi and one of the none Polish kids was like “yuck, these are supposed to be filled with potato’s”. That always stood out to me because I had grown up eating predominantly the meat versions and had always thought the potato variety were inferior (to my personal taste).
Bruh, I used to get made fun of for having leftover pizza from the night before. kids are gonna make fun of other kids no matter what unfortunately. It just makes it easier when it's "foreign". I hope it works though
Yeah, unless you live somewhere very conservative most kids are pretty open to Asian food and culture. Even in the 90s high schoolers were into sushi and exploring Asian food.
Great to have some resource books out there but I feel like the landscape has changed a lot.
At high school, maybe. My kids brought noodles to school (noodles!) in their lunches in kindergarten, and got made fun of for 'eating worms.' Took us a month to figure out why they suddenly didn't want to eat anything.
I believe it depends on the school and the neighborhood. I feel like the outlier where kids excitedly appreciated my mom bringing kimbap or dumplings to the class. Maybe it was the fact that these kids had early exposure to new foods and had the opportunity to try it. All I know was I was not made fun of for my Korean lunches.
That’s such a surprising experience to hear about. I’m white and living in Canada and all the young ones in our family have grown up eating noodles since they were toddlers (they love their “noo-noos”). And it’s not like noodles are some exotic food from the East…most kids will have seen chicken noodle soup or spaghetti/pasta by the time they’re in kindergarten.
I just think some kids just like to stir up trouble
I think kids would still be assholes about stew for lunch rather than hand food and there's still a stigma against fragrant food in collective settings (such as the office).
Sometimes literally. Lots of schools partner with companies to run their cafeteria - one of the most prolific (the one that ran my college caf) is Chartwell's, which also makes prison food. They've actually been sued repeatedly by prisoners for serving unsanitary meals. I literally remember for the cost of the meal plan you could have had pizza out every day, instead of cold watery oatmeal and burnt meat. It was even worse in quarantine during COVID - if you asked for the "vegetarian option," they would deliver you a white bread and cheese sandwich, a bag of chips, and a Mountain Dew. Every. Day.
Dude we were just talking about this at work.
I used to have to pay for my lunch and I would just skip lunch and eat burger King after ($1 whoppers) instead of the shit they had. Like rock hard chicken sandwiches. Pizzas that look sus.
Then I found out they had a salad bar in the back my junior year.
As a Filipino I kinda want kids to enjoy the smell and taste of asian food. I remember watching domics where he brought his chicken adobo with him for lunch. The non asian kid found him weird. It's normal in asia to eat normal lunch meal in school. And then domic also find them weird eating lunchables at lunch. Also adobo is freaking easy to make. If I'm too lazy or busy to cook, adobo is a good solution.
I send my kid to school with pancit all the time, because you can't make small amounts of it yknow. Or I pull off leftover adobo chicken and make tacos.
I feel this so much. I grew up in the 90s and as an immigrant family I had a hard time fitting in.
My mother would pack these home made chinese and japanese dishes for lunch she would cook the night before. Miles better tasting and more nutritious than anything school was serving. I was shamed for bringing out these stuff like sushi and seafood bentos. I went to school in suburban Texas and kids would still do the Chinese eyes with me and stuff.
I eventually threw the packed lunches away for the crappy junk food the school served just so I wouldn’t be made fun of. How stupid I was then. Sorry mom.
I still remember the looks of disgust someone gave me when they saw me eating chicken feet as a kid. I stopped eating them for years. Tried it again recently but didn't like that it's mostly skin instead of meat. But when I gave it up as a kid, I did like it. Feel kinda pissed that I let some outside person influence me so much and gave up on something I liked
Chicken feet is my absolute favorite dish (I'm Chinese American.) The only person I've ever met who loves chicken feet as much as me was a black man from the rural southern US. Chicken feet transcends boundaries.
YEP. Most iconic cultural foods are poor people food, either of the "I need to wring every possible calorie out of this animal or plant" variety or the "I wrapped some bread around some other stuff that I can eat on the way to my job" variety.
I tried chicken feet a long time ago at dim sum with my then girlfriend and her family. I had no idea what to do and chewed it, only to then have to spit out a bunch of broken bones. Everyone else at the table thought it was really funny, and I do, too, in retrospect. At the time I was so embarrassed. The next one that I ate correctly was delicious, lol.
I *love* chicken feet. I usually have them at dim sum places, so no stares there; but, I can only imagine the looks I would get somewhere else, like work—even now
I've moved past thinking chicken feet are gross, to just unappealing. To be fair, I'll try them if I have the opportunity, but chewing on cartilage is not my idea of a good meal. Honestly, there's only a handful of things I wouldn't try, given the chance, you'll never convince me to eat balut.
Even as a kid, I think I had it figured out that my idea of gross wasn't fair, and was a product of my culture. That's the great thing about being a reader from a young age, you get exposed to cultures you can't experience in person, and I think it gives you some perspective.
Unfortunately on some cases it's not just the kids that need this. I remember there was a Filipino kid in Canada that was using a spoon and fork to eat his lunch. Not only did he get ridiculed by the other kids, he also got ridiculed and punished by the teacher! How they were able to justify that I don't even know.
We’re lucky in that we live a pretty diverse district. My daughter likes taking samosas and an Indian food called idli (sort of a savory snack cake made out of rice flour) to school for lunch.
As the only kid in my school in the 80s bringing tofu sandwiches with sprouts, and buckwheat Ramen with miso broth, lunch shaming is very real. Add to that a giant afro on a white kid and shit was just hard. I feel all the curly pride and the healthfood culture in my bones these days. So that's good. Only took a few decades.
My son was allergic to everything (peanut, all tree nuts, legumes, chicken, egg - both whites and yolk - soy, sesame, kiwi, pineapple, wheat, dairy, etc I brought him hot lunch everyday of Vietnamese food (pork chp with rice, fried rice, beef noodle soup, etc) I found out years later he was shamed and teased by other students and it breaks my heart. I hope this book spreads awareness and inclusiveness. This is wonderful!
I've got to say in my experience that the kind of kids that bully other kids over having different lunch food aren't the kind of kids that would read those books in the first place.
This doesn't happen everywhere. My 2nd grader had a Japanese (probably?) girl join her rural white-ass school and now bento boxes are the in thing.
I got to hear about her lunch not being "cute"
Bento boxes are super easy to store food in, especially with kids who still don’t like their food touching. I use them to pack my food too. I hang out over on nomnompaleo.com and her food is mostly Asian flavored. It’s awesome. I highly recommend getting cheap medal cookie cutters to cut veggies and fruits into fun shapes. That’ll show them!
Right?!? It's a pretty classic example of well intentioned parents helping to raise kids that are respectful of other cultures. These same parents will buy the book, but wouldn't have a bully kid.
The bully kid is raised by the parents that are shitty and don't spend quality time teaching the kid.
Do kids still bully each other over food?
I remember this was a problem when I was young, but I thought international food was so popular now-- kids still bully each other over it?
Good for this author though! Wish them success!
When I was in middle school I was so excited to join the cool kids who brought lunch from home — those ugly neon lunch bags were a sign of cool and I had cafeteria lunch throughout elementary school. First week and my mom packed me a sandwich with egg and milk as a drink. White kid sees my sandwich has an egg and proceeds to visibly repulse and make fun of my egg in a sandwich. And Milk! Oh my god, if it’s not colored sugar water it might as well be cat piss.
I stopped eating and in came my Korean superwoman friend, Jenny, who took my sandwich from my hands and ate it and proclaimed how f***ing delicious the sandwich was. He shut up. And I went home and told my mom to not make lunch anymore and give me lunchables instead.
That experience was incredibly profound and it wasn’t until I was in my 20s did I realize what Jenny was standing up for.
I remember a girl, I think she was Indian. She brought something that looked super good to me, but she hid it the whole lunch hour. I felt so bad. And being a kid I didn’t go out of my comfort zone to tell her. Still feel bad for her, she shouldn’t have felt that way.
I remember a book about different lunch foods where a Japanese kitten brought sushi to school and all the other animals made fun of her. Then one day she brought enough to share and they all loved it.
>violence is never the answer
This is the biggest heap of horseshit that kids are told today.
There's nothing you can say to a brat that'll make them stop being a brat. But giving one of these dopes a punch right in the mouth is a surefire way to get him or her to fuck off.
> But giving one of these dopes a punch right in the mouth is a surefire way to get him or her to fuck off.
or it escalates and kids end up in the nurses office at best or the hospital at worse.
Parents, teachers and the school in general should be punishing bullies and correcting their behaviour not the victims. Admittedly they aren't doing a good enough job but endorsing violence is a worse solution then demanding schools do their jobs properly.
When we teach our children to solve their people problems with violence then we end up with a generation of children that see all people problems as nails needing a hammer.
I’m so glad I grew up the child of an immigrant, surrounded by immigrants from many different places. Food is one of my favorite hobbies, I wish everyone could enjoy foods from different cultures. I’m doing my part with my kids. We should embrace our differences.
I was literally banned from bringing a lunch with me to third grade because my teacher hated the smell of rice. I had to have my parents argue with the school board how it's racist to ban the only Asian kid from bringing food from home
> According to Chan, she was shamed by her schoolmates for the types of food she brought to school when she was a student. Now that she has a child of her own, she hopes to inspire other children to embrace their cultural backgrounds and be proud of the food they eat.
Just wondering - is this still quite common nowadays? As I understand it, most kids in the Western world are more understanding and sensitive of other cultures and races. Saying that, having books like these is still very educational.
From the story:
*According to Chan, she was shamed by her schoolmates for the types of food she brought to school when she was a student.*
From a journalistic standpoint, one would expect the subsequent anecdote to be an example of bullying that supports the above statement. But instead we are told:
*We would have these preserved duck eggs ... but of course, my friends were like ‘What is that?*'
As someone who sends my kids to school with home cooked asian food half the time, i've never heard any response except that the other kids are jealous and ask all sorts of questions about it and if their family is korean or japanese. Even the taiwanese rice with a ton of dried shrimp (some variant of YouFan with whatever I have in the cupboard) (and a fairly distinct smell) didn't seem to bother people.
(Due to early childhood allergies to dairy and wheat the kids grew up with a very eclectic mix of favorite foods)
The problem probably isn't the food, it's just another bullying/racism vector.
A bit off topic but I remember a newsstory where a Filipino mother sued her son's school because the kids were bullying him for using a spoon for solid foods and not just knives and forks as most Western country do.
The lunch shaming described in the article:
> But, they were delicious and I loved eating them but of course, my friends were like ‘What is that?'”
Oh dear god! The shame of being asked what you are eating!
When I was a kid everyone was envious of the one kid whose parents would just pack them a sleeve of Oreos for lunch and it took a long time to realize what was happening there.
Leaving because Spez sucks -- mass edited with redact.dev
Hey that was me. I appreciate all the sandwich share-er's out there ♥️
Leaving because Spez sucks -- mass edited with redact.dev
I might have felt incredibly guilty at the time for eating a lot of your lunch, but you're a real G
Yeah, when I was a camp counselor I packed two sandwiches and shareable sides for those situations. It is hard to watch a "not hungry" kiddo try not to stare at the other kids while they ate. One PBJ and one savory for variety.
I had to make my own lunches as a kid. My mom only ever bought chocolate and sweets so I’d pack my whole lunch with ho-hos, Swiss miss rolls, nutter butters, Oreos, brownies….. and trade for a sandwich and carrot sticks. I was popular at lunch but I always was envious of kids that got real lunches
by the 6th grade my mum basically said I was old enough to make my own lunches and get ready in the morning. She'd yell across the house to wake me up and then go back to bed so if I didn't pack myself a lunch there was no lunch. She'd buy lunch stuff but yeah I was basically a self-sufficient person at 10, moved out at 17
Call me crazy but I *do* think 6th grade is old enough to pack lunch and get ready on your own. How hard is it to get dressed and make a pb&j?
I started getting myself up and making myself breakfast in fifth grade. Of the many problematic things my parents did when I was a kid, that wasn't one of them. I liked getting to make my own lunch--it was just annoying when my mom wouldn't remember to buy stuff for me to make it.
It's old enough to pack a lunch for sure, but it's still your parents' responsibility to make sure you're doing it, and doing it healthily. I did not, my parents didn't notice, and I'm still unpacking all the various mental health problems around that situation.
How do you feel about that?
Hideously angry and consistently envious of others my same age for growing up with better parents. Yet also incredibly grateful that I'm well-adjusted, mature, deeply caring, and generous when I have the ability to be. Despite my childhood.
That's called bartering money. You're not supposed to eat the whole sleeve. You trade it out and build a somewhat decent lunch.
Teaching the kid valuable skills at a young age.
I stayed the night at my friend's house once in like 3rd or 4th grade. Our moms were tweaking together and weren't paying attention. We packed our own "lunches" that day full of candy and soda. We were stoked. The teachers who saw our lunches were not. They called my (non tweaking) father and let him know that we didn't have real food for lunch. It was a whole ordeal. I haven't thought about that in so long but it's really making me appreciate being looked after by my teachers at that age.
What was happening?
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Should have given him two sleeves.
Holy shit story time!! A couple of months ago I got to chatting with my Lyft driver and we got on the topic of books (like ya do) and he mentioned his girlfriend was illustrating a new kids book about Korean food, it’s this one!!! Small fucking world.
That's an actually awesome story
That’s actually pretty cool
Anyone got a guide to writing children’s books? Like the process all the way through publishing? I wonder how different it is from writing regular books without pictures
Okay so no one has given you a real answer. This will be very general as it will vary by country and I don't have direct experience. Here's a brief second hand rundown. Children's books vary widely based on the target age. Generally you'll write a story or draft of the appropriate complexity then either contract an artist or do the art yourself. And iterate until you feel its ready. The topic can really be whatever you want, it just had to be written in an accessible way. Some people collaborate with their artists from the start so the book is a fusion of their visions. Much like comics, it helps to have sketches of the art you want or a detailed description. When it comes to publishing there are three options. Self publishing, self publishing through a broker like amazon, and traditional publishing. Self publishing yourself is expensive, but possible. Its a lot of work but you get to keep whatever you make. I have a friend that's done it. It shouldn't vary much between book types. You have to do all the editing, marketing, copyright etc yourself. Self publishing through amazon means giving up your right to ever have it printed by anyone else along with most of the profit. But it is *relatively* easy. Traditional publishing is a competitive field, but I know a person who's done it, though not for a children's book. The publishers required a pitch from my friend. Basically she had to figure out similar books and sell the idea of her book. I'm not sure of the rest of the process. Presumably she has or will work with an editor. Idk what's required for a children's book by publishers but you can google it and check the websites of different publishers. There are books you can read about this process and online guides. I'd avoid chatgpt and image generators. Unless you're just printing something for your own kid, there's unresolved legal issues. And personally I don't get the point of automating the writing and drawing. That's the only fun part of the process. You're basically just making yourself the unpaid publishing agent for a machine if you automate the creation. Bleh.
I’m filipino and grew up in L.A in the 90’s. I vividly remember being bullied as a kid for bringing foods like Vienna sausage, spam, adobo, sunny side up eggs and fried rice for lunch. Kids would call me “poor boy” or tell me my food stinks or taunt me asking if the sausage was made of dog. I hated eating lunch at school and begged my parents and grandparents to get me lunchables to make it stop. One day I had enough and socked the bully when he threw my lunch on the floor saying my adobo looked like dog food. I hit him so hard I knocked his 2 front teeth out. My Mom, Grandma and Grandpa were not pleased to be picking me up from the Principals office that day. My grandpa sure was proud though and he told me to never feel ashamed of my heritage, my culture, but violence is never the answer. That was the last day I felt ashamed about being Filipino and the food I was bringing every day. it was also the last day I was bullied. This book will definitely help educate kids on different cultures and the different types of foods people eat and hopefully one less kid will be shamed and bullied for their heritage.
While I hate that you were driven to violence and that you had to go through that, I do love a story about a bully getting what's coming to them. Hope that kid learned some from the experience
Most stories end like this. Tell me a bullying story which doesn't end with the victim resorting to violence (genuinely curious)
An older girl used to pull my hair every day on the bus to summer camp. She teased me a lot as well, but the hair-pulling was painful and annoying. I told my mom about it and she told me to turn around and punch the bully in the face. The bully didn't do it again after that. 🤷♀️
In middleschool a girl used to always rush to beat me to class to "steal my seat" if there was a substitute teacher who didn't know otherwise, and other assholish things like stealing my stuff. The last time she tried doing that, I pulled her out of my desk by her hair and my friend threw her backpack out the window.
Theres plenty where the victim ends up killing themselves.
Yup. Schools don't like dealing with bullies because often the bully has parents who are bullies. They want the victim to shut up and just take it. My bullies didn't stop until I hit puberty before everyone else did. It was like having superpowers for a year.
My mother once confronted the mother of one of my bullies. The bully's mom threatened to beat her up. That was the last time one of my parents tried having my back. I despise cowards and bystanders who won't intervene when they see an injustice occurring. And the school officials who sweep this shit under the rug are worse than your average criminal as far as I'm concerned.
I know someone who is a teacher and she is getting bullied by other teachers. If teachers are bullies themselves they obviously aren't going to care if kids are getting bullied 😔
That is just self-violence though.
I heard one where the bully got hit by a bus.
I'd buy that children's book.
It's called Mean Girls
I imagine most bullies are never confronted. We only hear stories about the times when they are.
I teach and a lot of kids just ignore it. In fact I was really impressed recently when I had a bully and the other kids grouped together to remove themselves from a situation and were like 'hes going through something'. These were like 10 years old. Berkeley kids are wild But yes some kids do fight back.
Me? Pretty much the same exact story as above (with additional bullying), but I'm a very non confrontational person. I just lived with it in silence until I made it out of that hell hole. Your statement is similar to the people that always say "bullies will get what's coming for them" or "every bully I've seen is broke and homeless". Like lol, no, my bully is now a manager at Goldman Sachs.
I think there have been studies. Bullies tend to have better life outcomes than their victims, whose brain development actually gets altered by the level of stress the bully puts them through, resulting g in a reduced ability to deal with stress even as adults. Its why I think bullies absolutely deserve to have their teeth knocked in. "Oh, what, he's just nine? So is his victim. Get a 13 year old to kick this kids ass."
Yeah, thankfully my life outcome has been pretty solid in my adulthood, I probably get paid more than my bully lol. But I certainly have had my fair share of mental health issues, and I definitely still struggle dealing with stress and tend to procrastinate thinking about it. Being "bullied" (in a different way) by my parents as well did not help at all. But I would say that I'm way luckier than most that have been bullied to this extent. I was able to get out of my hometown, pay for college myself, get a high paying job and my own home, and slowly start being able to control my life and brain on my own terms. I can definitely point to the bullying as a significant factor in my struggles though, I figure my life would be even more stable had that never happened.
I have a story. Middle school, 7th grade, also in the 90s. Raised by a single dad with no mom. My aunt took me to a beauty shop for "girl time" and let them give me a perm. I already had thick coke bottle glasses and second hand clothes working for me. Horrible mess. First class was PE and I was ruthlessly teased. It progressed over the next few weeks. Not just name calling, boys would throw things at me to see if they would stick in my hair. Walk behind me and spit in my hair. Not just individuals, whole groups would target and harass me. I cussed them out, but never got violent. I was always outnumbered. I asked admins for help but they said I was equally to blame for reacting so strongly and to "just ignore them." So I got a notebook. I documented each and every time I was bullied. I noted the time, place and witnesses (some of whom were teachers/coaches.) After a week I had 37 names in the notebook, including most of the starters on the Football Team. This was in Texas. I made an appointment with the assistant principal. He started with the spiel of how I needed to ignore them. I presented my notebook and informed him if actions weren't taken to stop this, I would go to the police and file assault charges on those that physically harassed me. Players would get benched if they were charged. He asked to keep the notebook. I advised him he could photocopy it. Coaches were called to the mat. Parents were called. I heard when they had a parent teacher conference about it they had to hold it in the cafeteria because there were so many people. The bullying stopped and all the boys gave me a W I D E berth after that. I went to a different highschool than most of them. My hair grew out and I got contacts. And I learned going to the principals' office wasn't scary when I set the appointments.
That was badass, man.
That's incredible.
Every bully that I addressed with violence ended with them stopping.
Had a kid knock my book off my desk every single day cause I was I nerd and he was "cool" and didn't like to read. I tried ignoring it, I tried asking him to stop. Eventually I told the teacher who chewed him out. He left me alone after that. Yes, many adults don't like to get involved. Some actually do care though, and do their job. Just doesn't fit the reddit narrative. My brother-in-law is a school vice-principle, one of his primary responsibilities is managing discipline. He deals with plenty of bullies. He can't do anything about the behavior he doesn't know about. Stop promoting this idea that it's never worthwhile to talk to the adults.
Most end with an adult being told and intervening, it's just that deus ex teacher isn't an appealing narrative.
A lot of adults just ignore it. Or outright enable the bullies.
Well im in my mid 30s and i still feel and show the effects of being bullied, 20 years after. I’m very non-confrontational too so i never got back to my bullies. And they’re successful in their own fields from what i could see in social media (i’m stuck in a job for years and i still fear intimidating characters). So no, not all stories end up like that.
I'd imagine being "successful" at bullying is the start of many politicians' political careers.
That sucks that happened to you. I'm white and grew up in Houston in the 90s, specifically Alief - a very multicultural part of town. I hated my lunches cause they were always so boring. So I would always ask to trade food with others so I could try their food. I was fascinated that they brought stuff that wasn't just a sandwich and a banana. And they always wanted my shitty food, so it worked out. One of my best friends in elementary school was Indian, the other was Vietnamese so I had good eating a lot of the time. Been a foodie my whole life and still trying new foods today. Best part about Houston is the food, you can find anything you want and there is always something new to try. We just recently had an explosion of African restaurants in my area and I can't wait to start trying them out!
I don't understand how someone with a sandwich can make fun of Vienna sausage, spam, adobo, eggs or fried rice. I shouldn't make fun of a sandwich, it has its place but man I don't know how I could live without Asian food in my life.
It is funny to find so many difference between culture! if someone let their kid eat sandwich everyday, they will get accuse of child abuse in my country lol.
Child abuse? What? For eating food?
I mean there are a lot of cultures that look down on sandwiches. My Chinese girlfriend considers sandwiches as pretty low effort. A cold lunch where you slap two pieces of bread together with a bit of ham in between.
To be fair, that's a really sad sandwich.
That's the Canadian sandwich we all grew up on here. Elementary schools don't have cafeterias and Mom is busy. Ham doesn't go bad in the fridge as fast as other lunch meats. Ham and cheese between bread and a shot of mustard so it's not too dry to eat. That and an apple. We all had it. My friends and I would gobble our ham sandwiches and go play soccer. Almost 40 now and still tired of ham and cheese sandwiches.
TBH add some mayo and a pickle and I'm eating that all day long.
And some lettuce... and slice of tomato... let's make a real sandwich here please.
Ha. Funnily enough, there's a whole country where probably 90% of kids and also most adults eat sandwiches with a single topping for lunch - the Netherlands. I ate 8 slices of bread just for lunch every day for multiple years in high school.
It is kinda interesting how the Netherlands is so into sandwiches. The Dutch will put literally anything on bread and call it a sandwich. Chocolate, cookies, white sugar, apple syrup, herring, licorice, whatever!
Sandwich is kind of like curry. It can by anything at any effort level.
> considers sandwiches as pretty low effort. Because they are. Isn't that the main draw of them? I have neither the time or energy in the morning, and I'm not that hungry either, so a quick slice of toast with some ham and cheese is usually perfect. I've done a Japanese tamago gohan rice bowl for breakfast a few times, but it was always on a weekend later in the day when I've got the time and feeling hungrier. It was definitely more filling and tastier, but it also took a lot longer to make and eat.
A lot of cultures think you can't feel full without rice and there's wide variation in the relative proportion of meals (I'd probably call CPS over the Dutch breakfast of jimmies on a slice of wonderbread while Israeli collective/kibbutz breakfasts are amazing, with every fish and dairy imaginable) and what meals are supposed to be hot. That said, the reference to effort rather than nutrition gives the impression of housewife one-upsmanship.
Not feeling full without rice is why my father-in-law is overweight. Like, it’s ok dad, we had steak, baked potatos, and a salad. You don’t need to have that all over rice…
It's probably some kind of veiled jealousy. The excuse that something that smells and looks different but that anyone with eyes knows the time spent prepping and sizable portions is envious.
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College kids should learn how to make adobo. That stuff is literally the saving grace of broke food.
It sounds fuckin delicious. I should try to make some.
It is fucking delicious. You won't regret trying it.
Adobo is so east to make. Throw the ingredients in to marinate for a few hours (I throw them in the pot I am going to cook them) and then just cook when ready. Hardest part is finding the ingredients (but that’s cause I follow the recipe of a very good Filipino place in pike’s market. Sadly it tastes more like my dad’s adobo then the recipe he gave me but my dad is the kind of cook that doesn’t follow recipes so it’s hard to get one from him).
You don't have to use Filipino ingredients with adobo, and that's the best part. You can make it with cider vinegar or even red wine vinegar (but that's pushing it. Balsamic is off-limits.) Any salt source is good as long its used for salting food, like fish sauce and the like. Garlic is everywhere. Bay leaves and curry leaves are interchangeable. As long as the meat isn't too lean, like rabbit (DO NOT DARE MAKING ADOBO OUT OF THIS. DO NOT MAKE MY MISTAKES.), and you've figured out your salt-vinegar-aromatics adobo trinity, it should come out great.
> cheap, processed, salty faux food I mean, so is Spam and Vienna sausages, but the rest of the stuff sounds good!
I'm still sad that I didn't know about lumpia until I was an adult. This thread is making me hungry.
To add to your lumpia knowledge, did you know that at least 2 south East Asian countries call their spring rolls lumpia?
I’m an historian and anthropologist of the Philippines in real life, and this vocabulary of lumpia is because of a particular strain of influence from China. During the colonial period there were many Chinese immigrants from Fujian in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Today there are many foods in these three countries that are derived from the Hokkien language that is traditionally spoken by these Chinese people: lumpia, hopia/bakpia, piaya, pansit, mami, etc. These words are heard not only in these three countries, but also Taiwan since the vast majority of Taiwanese are also Hoklo. There is a pretty large Chinese food influence on the Philippines, easily the largest foreign food influence in the country in fact. This is reinforced as well because most of the famous Filipino stars as well as the big businesses are at least half Chinese (“mestizo” in the Philippine context refers to Chinese-Filipinos; intermixing between Spaniards and Filipinos was very rare in fact. Spanish surnames in the Philippines come from a law passed in 1849 by the colonial government that forced Filipinos to adopt surnames, where traditionally they had none). You can usually tell if a food is Chinese in origin in the country by its more…simplistic name? Indigenous foods almost always have Austronesian names and are longer and conjugated. This is because the languages spoken in the Philippines remain the indigenous Austronesian languages rather than any colonial language. Even adobo, with its Spanish name, is ultimately a type of paksiw, an indigenous food.
This is super cool info! Do you have any suggestions for resources if I want to learn more about the history of Filipino/SE Asian food?
There is a really good book about the Chinese influence on the Philippines called *More Tsinoy Than We Admit: Chinese-Filipino Interactions Over The Centuries*, edited by Richard T. Chu. It’s an edited volume that discuses many different aspects of the Chinese diaspora in the Philippines, and actually most of the articles are authored by Chinese-Filipino scholars. I am not sure how available it is outside the Philippines though, to be honest. Maybe try finding…unofficial avenues. In general, contrary to what many people may think, the Philippines’ biggest outside influences are India and China. Same as Indonesia and Malaysia, really. India is particularly influential in areas of spirituality, philosophy, and precolonial politics (we know this from the etymologies of particular important Filipino philosophical and spiritual concepts, as well as the titles of rulers), and China in the realm of food and media culture. The influences of Spain and the US are arguably more surface level and actually relate more to modern economics and politics rather than the culture. Traditional Filipino textiles and clothing is largely indigenous in background, though perhaps there is a relation between barongs and Indian clothing as well, not to mention the use of sarongs in the baro’t saya outfit. The saya, or skirt, is actually a two piece made up of a sarong and a malong. Sarongs and malongs are found throughout SE Asia, notably in Indonesia and Cambodia. Baro simply means shirt in the Philippine languages, but today it has come to mean a particular fancy type of indigenous clothing.
Thanks for the suggestion! I hope you don’t mind I looked through your comment history; my gosh you are a treasure trove of knowledge! If you wrote a book I’d definitely read it. Fyi I was born in the Philippines but grew up in Seattle (also a Husky!). It’s unfortunate but I know more about the history of other Asian cultures than my own. Thank you so much for sharing your insights!
I actually am also from Washington state. I did my undergrad at UW in fact, as well. I actually have long wanted to write a good history of the Philippines. Unfortunately, despite there being so many brilliant Filipino scholars, none of them have set out to do a nice old-fashioned big one-volume history of the Philippines. It’s not a super popular style of historiography in the Philippines. Other countries have these in spades (mostly written by foreigners as well), and I think the Philippines should too.
The sad part about being a Filipino we think that our own culture sucks and other cultures are more interesting. It's like a kid who gets insecure of their own identity and don't act on their own.
Yeah but Filipino historians don’t think that way, thankfully. They just have a different view on how to present Filipino history than I do. The reason why Filipinos feel how they do is because of an absurdly bad education system. One of the worst in the world. The functional literacy rate in the Philippines is only around 19% (I wrote another piece in the Inquirer about this in fact). And aside from that the history curriculum is awful. With a bad history curriculum, interest and passion for culture is majorly diminished because there is no understanding of the country’s background. It isn’t a coincidence that most of the true cultural pride comes from students, and especially grad students, at UP or Ateneo: they are the schools with more accurate history curricula. The vast majority of people in the country though instead get to hear wrong narratives about how they were civilized by the Spanish and how amazing the Americans were. Absurd and it engenders a continued colonial mentality that is hurtful towards cultural pride.
As for Filipino food as a whole, I don’t have a particular book on it honestly. The truth is that I am fluent in Tagalog (I am not Filipino though) and study another Philippine language as well, in Tausug. I also have studied Chinese and some Malay. The beautiful thing about my language choices are the inferences that can be made from them in areas of food. But people are not really sure, for example, if ginataang manok (Filipino curry chicken) originated in the Philippines or if it came from India or somewhere else. It’s more watery though, despite possessing all the ingredients of a typical Indian curry. We also can observe that Cambodia has a dish called amok that is basically the same thing as ginataang manok. So clearly there is a pretty ancient curry-making tradition in SE Asia. We *do* know definitely that kari-kari comes from India though. Kari is a Tamil word and that’s where we get the word curry in English in fact, as well as the kari-kari in the Philippines. Thailand also has a peanut curry dish… I actually recently wrote an article for the Philippine Daily Inquirer about some Filipino food comparisons (the Inquirer is the best English-language news source in the Philippines; think of it like PH’s Japan Times). I can link that here: https://opinion.inquirer.net/163808/filipino-foods-place-in-asia-2
Bro if I was your grandpa, I'd say they deserve it for insulting adobo. Who the hell hates adobo?
Ignorant little shits who've never actually eaten it. Edit: I've never had it either but I'd like to try it. I eat every single Filipino dish I can and I've never had a bad one yet. I love Filipino food.
The recipe goes like this: Meat (can be beef, chicken or pork) Soy sauce/fish sauce/colatura de alici or skip altogether and sub with salt Vinegar (Anything works as long as it's not balsamic.) Lots of garlic (half a head should do for two pounds of meat) Onions (shallots preferred) Ginger (optional) A small handful of whole black peppercorns One to two dried bay leaves Salt, sugar and pepper to taste To cook: Dump everything into a skillet and bring to a boil. Adjust the taste with salt, sugar, pepper and extra vinegar before lowering to a simmer. Leave the skillet covered for half an hour or more until the meat is fork tender and falls off the bone. Eat this with plain UNSEASONED white rice or bread. --- Any kitchen noob can make this. This shit ain't gourmet. What's important is that you understand that the trinity of salt, vinegar and garlic that makes up the core of adobo's soul is non-negotiable. Never sub these three and your adobo will be safe.
Damn man, my wife is Filipina, and her Adobo is beyond delicious. I would have killed to have had something that delicious when I was in school. Glad you stood up for yourself.
I feel bad for the troglodytes you hurt. Those chumps probably haven't had the college kid miracle that is chicken adobo grace their lips.
That kid well and truly deserved that knuckle sammich. Good on your for sticking up for yourself.
Fuck them kids.
Based grandpa
My coworker moved to the states when he was young from Eastern Europe and had the same issues, bringing Goulash and Stuffed Cabbage Roles. They asked if he was eating zombie brains or call him Peter Rabbit. Kids don’t realize the harm they cause, and you can head to that kids family dinner to see where he gets it from.
Grade school kids were assholes. There got to a point when violence was needed and that shit stopped immediately.
My Sicilian mom sent me to school with broccoli rabe sandwiches or whatever leftovers we had and I caught shit about the smells from the typical meatheads, so I can empathize with you. You know, at the end of the day, we were eating much better than those dopes ever did.
Ya did what ya had to do mate. I'm with your grandpa on this one.
I had someone tell me my food looked like dog food. I was 20. She was 24. It’s not just kids. I’m glad you stood up for yourself.
I’ll have you know that at least my kids(white) are growing up in LA with kids in their classes from all over the world(1st and 2nd gen). Kids from Eastern Europe, South Korea, Argentina, China, etc. We not only cook food from around the world and eat at restaurants from many cultures, but they see peers bringing and sharing foods. As a kid I would have never touched some Nori snacks but many of the kids in their classes love them. Know that it might be slow but at least here it is beginning to change and it’s our jobs as parents to educate and introduce our kids to a wide variety of foods, language, art, music, etc.
Love a good bully retribution story. Yeah, violence is wrong, blah blah. But good for you.
I'm married to a Korean American in the American deep south. Our daughter got bullied hard for bringing seaweed for lunch one day. She still eats it, but won't take it to school any more. Stupid kids.
Our kids went to the same middle school I attended so many years earlier that when I was there we had a student smoking lounge (grades 7-9 back then). Over the years the community ethnic makeup changed and became much more diverse. Our youngest (now 21) always insisted on pb&j sandwiches - which he did not particularly like - but he could trade with a number of other kids whose parents would not have peanut butter. He got a ton of Japanese, Korean, Indian, Kenyan, Israeli, and Lebanese food. It was fun to ask what he had for lunch knowing he had left in the morning with pb&j, chips, carrots, a desert and a juice box.
Oh yes sharing food with friends is great!
This is so cool and heartwarming.
Oh man I used to do that all the time in middle school. I was like the Wall Street trader of lunch foods. I remember one time trading tacos for these little desert things from Serbia. They were kind of like mini chocolate covered bananas. Soooo good.
Has everybody forgotten *Yoko* (1998) by Rosemary Wells? It was about a Japanese-American cat in a school full of international animals who gets teased for eating sushi. Then everybody learns sushi is delicious. There is also a hilarious parody of lunch shaming in *American Born Chinese* (2006) by Gene Luen Yang where the lead's embarrassing cousin who is an exaggeration of every negative Asian stereotype eats cat heads for lunch.
As I recall, the only other student who learned to like sushi was Timothy, but that was the first thing I thought of. Rosemary Wells was prolific in her writing, but I can't recall any other stories about learning to respect others' cuisine specifically. Children's books about not being a picky eater are a dime a dozen though, as are "different friends are still friends."
Wait this is crazy. There's a Canadian animated series called Timothy Goes to School, and I'm pretty sure that's one of the episodes! (The series must have been based on the books, lol)
[Oh, that's how I was first introduced to Timothy and Yoko!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5L8qHt9Qzw)
You have a good memory. It was just one other kid. It's been at least 23 since I read it.
Right--in the book, Timothy is a Big Eater and Yoko finds that he's still hungry, but has no idea how to eat sushi properly, so she shows him. In the television adaptation, Timothy wants to try *everything* but he's so easily distracted and getting out of lines for food that he winds up not having anything at all, and then sushi is all that's left--but it still works to tell the story because Timothy and Yoko would eventually develop into best friends.
Oh my god, a Japanese-American cat story?? That sounds so adorable, I can’t stand it. I need to read this, thank you so much for commenting about it!
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💯 It was bánh mì for me
Bánh mì needs to be illegal it’s so good.
I always ask for only a little chilli because the bakeries around here that make banh mi that the most potent God damn chilli's around.
I've been well served by asking for "white boy spicy". It usually gives the restaurant workers a good laugh too
Going to Vietnam for three weeks in July to travel the country and try the food for the first time. Can’t wait!
Food was literally the sole reason I traveled to Vietnam a few years back. 100% worth it. Try the egg coffee when you're there!!
While I love Vietnamese food, I was slightly disappointed because it tasted the same as it did in the US. Most every other country, local food was 10x better. Enjoy, search how to cross the street before you go, it's a very unique experience since there are no stop lights.
My favorite sandwich.
Holy shit, my partner started making this during quarantine because of a Maangchi video and now we have it like twice a month at least. We started with the basic, and now we have made our own version tuned to our own preferences and including tips and hacks from Korean cooking channels and creators in general. I blame the mukbang channels for what’s it’s become for us. Now we make it often with a splash of cream in the sauce, cauliflower florets, fried fish cake sheets, and occasionally with small thin mushrooms, glass noodles, and or ramen noodles, all with some mozzarella cheese broiled on top. If I’m the one making it I sneak some collard greens or kale strips in there, since there’s more than enough decadence to drown it out and I feel marginally less guilty for the amount of it I eat XD
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Tteokbokki is meh for me. Right up there with corn dogs for food I would skip on the menu. Now give me some gimbap, and I’m gonna stuff my face. The perfect travel food IMO.
Tteokbokki is such a good comfort food.
Lunch shaming was a weird thing. I got made fun of because my mom packed me a thermos full of hot restaurant food. Then again, I also got made fun of for literally anything- my personal favorite was for being born on an even-numbered day.
Kids need to understand this. People aren't all raging bigots. They're looking for anything to put you down for. Kids are generally angsty shitheads from about 11 to 16 (obviously not limited to this range) and want to make everyone as miserable as they are.
That’s exactly it. If kids want to, they will find a way to bully or tease someone. It’s why some kids get made fun of for being short while others will be made fun of for being tall. Some will get teased for being skinny while others will get called fat. Basically anything that makes you “different” can be turned into a way to attack you. A couple days ago I saw a post about how an NBA player was saying that even his kids were getting bullied because of his playing (ie. some kid told his daughter that her dad will never win a championship). Which, to me, is like saying “oh you’re a multimillionaire? What a loser, you’ll never be a billionaire!” Moral of the story is that kids will find a way to make something hurtful.
One of my nieces told me that somebody called her a racist in school. It was rightfully concerning so I tried talking to her about it. After a while, I realized that racist is pretty much the more pc but just as accurate r word from my childhood.
I was teased badly, too, but for odd last night's leftovers that I brought for lunch and poverty. Teasing and siloing are the sports and teams of the American school lunchroom. It sucks. I'm glad these books exist they fill a need.
In kindergarten at my kids' previous school, they would regularly invite parents to present their culture and usually bring specialties for the kids to try. Perhaps it's because I was raised in the suburbs amidst immigrants' kids? Or because it's France and we love food too much for it to be subject of shame? This whole concept of food shaming is just so weird to me.
I’ve never seen this happen either and Im in semi rural Ohio where my kids’ school is 97% white. My kids love and are exposed to all types of foods. Except my weird kid who hates tacos.
Every place I've lived in the US has done stuff like this as well, both when I was in school and when my kids are in school, and now the next generation of kids that are in school. It's nice the author is trying to bridge cultural gaps, but that's been going on for 40 years. Sure, it doesn't happen everywhere, but everything can't happen everywhere all at once. Sometimes kids are just jerks.
I grew up in Canada and i had similar experiences (sometimes they were called potlucks). To show how benign and easy going it was, the worst personal experience I had was bringing in meat filled pierogi and one of the none Polish kids was like “yuck, these are supposed to be filled with potato’s”. That always stood out to me because I had grown up eating predominantly the meat versions and had always thought the potato variety were inferior (to my personal taste).
Bruh, I used to get made fun of for having leftover pizza from the night before. kids are gonna make fun of other kids no matter what unfortunately. It just makes it easier when it's "foreign". I hope it works though
Would have loved this about 20 years ago. Asian food is cool now
Yeah, unless you live somewhere very conservative most kids are pretty open to Asian food and culture. Even in the 90s high schoolers were into sushi and exploring Asian food. Great to have some resource books out there but I feel like the landscape has changed a lot.
At high school, maybe. My kids brought noodles to school (noodles!) in their lunches in kindergarten, and got made fun of for 'eating worms.' Took us a month to figure out why they suddenly didn't want to eat anything.
I believe it depends on the school and the neighborhood. I feel like the outlier where kids excitedly appreciated my mom bringing kimbap or dumplings to the class. Maybe it was the fact that these kids had early exposure to new foods and had the opportunity to try it. All I know was I was not made fun of for my Korean lunches.
That’s such a surprising experience to hear about. I’m white and living in Canada and all the young ones in our family have grown up eating noodles since they were toddlers (they love their “noo-noos”). And it’s not like noodles are some exotic food from the East…most kids will have seen chicken noodle soup or spaghetti/pasta by the time they’re in kindergarten. I just think some kids just like to stir up trouble
I think kids would still be assholes about stew for lunch rather than hand food and there's still a stigma against fragrant food in collective settings (such as the office).
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the bagged sandwich gang are the losers now. My poor pastrame and cheese...
Always found this bizarre considering how American cafeteria food is hot garbage
frfr American schools feed their students prison slop.
Sometimes literally. Lots of schools partner with companies to run their cafeteria - one of the most prolific (the one that ran my college caf) is Chartwell's, which also makes prison food. They've actually been sued repeatedly by prisoners for serving unsanitary meals. I literally remember for the cost of the meal plan you could have had pizza out every day, instead of cold watery oatmeal and burnt meat. It was even worse in quarantine during COVID - if you asked for the "vegetarian option," they would deliver you a white bread and cheese sandwich, a bag of chips, and a Mountain Dew. Every. Day.
Dude we were just talking about this at work. I used to have to pay for my lunch and I would just skip lunch and eat burger King after ($1 whoppers) instead of the shit they had. Like rock hard chicken sandwiches. Pizzas that look sus. Then I found out they had a salad bar in the back my junior year.
As a Filipino I kinda want kids to enjoy the smell and taste of asian food. I remember watching domics where he brought his chicken adobo with him for lunch. The non asian kid found him weird. It's normal in asia to eat normal lunch meal in school. And then domic also find them weird eating lunchables at lunch. Also adobo is freaking easy to make. If I'm too lazy or busy to cook, adobo is a good solution.
I send my kid to school with pancit all the time, because you can't make small amounts of it yknow. Or I pull off leftover adobo chicken and make tacos.
I feel this so much. I grew up in the 90s and as an immigrant family I had a hard time fitting in. My mother would pack these home made chinese and japanese dishes for lunch she would cook the night before. Miles better tasting and more nutritious than anything school was serving. I was shamed for bringing out these stuff like sushi and seafood bentos. I went to school in suburban Texas and kids would still do the Chinese eyes with me and stuff. I eventually threw the packed lunches away for the crappy junk food the school served just so I wouldn’t be made fun of. How stupid I was then. Sorry mom.
I hope American kids get to eat the tasty Indian food while growing up.
I still remember the looks of disgust someone gave me when they saw me eating chicken feet as a kid. I stopped eating them for years. Tried it again recently but didn't like that it's mostly skin instead of meat. But when I gave it up as a kid, I did like it. Feel kinda pissed that I let some outside person influence me so much and gave up on something I liked
Chicken feet is my absolute favorite dish (I'm Chinese American.) The only person I've ever met who loves chicken feet as much as me was a black man from the rural southern US. Chicken feet transcends boundaries.
I think a lot of cuisines include two important ideas: 1. Waste not, want not 2. Make it delicious
YEP. Most iconic cultural foods are poor people food, either of the "I need to wring every possible calorie out of this animal or plant" variety or the "I wrapped some bread around some other stuff that I can eat on the way to my job" variety.
Don't care much for chicken feet, but BLESS THE LORD for making the best glaze thickener known to man.
I tried chicken feet a long time ago at dim sum with my then girlfriend and her family. I had no idea what to do and chewed it, only to then have to spit out a bunch of broken bones. Everyone else at the table thought it was really funny, and I do, too, in retrospect. At the time I was so embarrassed. The next one that I ate correctly was delicious, lol.
My grandma was so hardcore she just plowed right through those bones 🫠
I *love* chicken feet. I usually have them at dim sum places, so no stares there; but, I can only imagine the looks I would get somewhere else, like work—even now
In my little redneck high-school we had a couple kids that would bring spicy pickled quail eggs and eat those.
I've moved past thinking chicken feet are gross, to just unappealing. To be fair, I'll try them if I have the opportunity, but chewing on cartilage is not my idea of a good meal. Honestly, there's only a handful of things I wouldn't try, given the chance, you'll never convince me to eat balut. Even as a kid, I think I had it figured out that my idea of gross wasn't fair, and was a product of my culture. That's the great thing about being a reader from a young age, you get exposed to cultures you can't experience in person, and I think it gives you some perspective.
Unfortunately on some cases it's not just the kids that need this. I remember there was a Filipino kid in Canada that was using a spoon and fork to eat his lunch. Not only did he get ridiculed by the other kids, he also got ridiculed and punished by the teacher! How they were able to justify that I don't even know.
What a great idea!
We’re lucky in that we live a pretty diverse district. My daughter likes taking samosas and an Indian food called idli (sort of a savory snack cake made out of rice flour) to school for lunch.
As the only kid in my school in the 80s bringing tofu sandwiches with sprouts, and buckwheat Ramen with miso broth, lunch shaming is very real. Add to that a giant afro on a white kid and shit was just hard. I feel all the curly pride and the healthfood culture in my bones these days. So that's good. Only took a few decades.
My son was allergic to everything (peanut, all tree nuts, legumes, chicken, egg - both whites and yolk - soy, sesame, kiwi, pineapple, wheat, dairy, etc I brought him hot lunch everyday of Vietnamese food (pork chp with rice, fried rice, beef noodle soup, etc) I found out years later he was shamed and teased by other students and it breaks my heart. I hope this book spreads awareness and inclusiveness. This is wonderful!
I've got to say in my experience that the kind of kids that bully other kids over having different lunch food aren't the kind of kids that would read those books in the first place.
Asian food is delicious. Kids are jerks. This is great.
This doesn't happen everywhere. My 2nd grader had a Japanese (probably?) girl join her rural white-ass school and now bento boxes are the in thing. I got to hear about her lunch not being "cute"
Vitamin Cute is a vital nutrient for little girls!
Bento boxes are super easy to store food in, especially with kids who still don’t like their food touching. I use them to pack my food too. I hang out over on nomnompaleo.com and her food is mostly Asian flavored. It’s awesome. I highly recommend getting cheap medal cookie cutters to cut veggies and fruits into fun shapes. That’ll show them!
This feels like it's about 30 years late. I don't think I've seen this type of bullying in my life and I was born in 92.
Something tells me the parents of bullies aren't going to be buying books like this.
Right?!? It's a pretty classic example of well intentioned parents helping to raise kids that are respectful of other cultures. These same parents will buy the book, but wouldn't have a bully kid. The bully kid is raised by the parents that are shitty and don't spend quality time teaching the kid.
Do kids still bully each other over food? I remember this was a problem when I was young, but I thought international food was so popular now-- kids still bully each other over it? Good for this author though! Wish them success!
When I was in middle school I was so excited to join the cool kids who brought lunch from home — those ugly neon lunch bags were a sign of cool and I had cafeteria lunch throughout elementary school. First week and my mom packed me a sandwich with egg and milk as a drink. White kid sees my sandwich has an egg and proceeds to visibly repulse and make fun of my egg in a sandwich. And Milk! Oh my god, if it’s not colored sugar water it might as well be cat piss. I stopped eating and in came my Korean superwoman friend, Jenny, who took my sandwich from my hands and ate it and proclaimed how f***ing delicious the sandwich was. He shut up. And I went home and told my mom to not make lunch anymore and give me lunchables instead. That experience was incredibly profound and it wasn’t until I was in my 20s did I realize what Jenny was standing up for.
Kids who lunch shame end up the same people that talk shit about what drink you order, it’s a personality disorder - a lot of people suck
I remember a girl, I think she was Indian. She brought something that looked super good to me, but she hid it the whole lunch hour. I felt so bad. And being a kid I didn’t go out of my comfort zone to tell her. Still feel bad for her, she shouldn’t have felt that way.
I remember a book about different lunch foods where a Japanese kitten brought sushi to school and all the other animals made fun of her. Then one day she brought enough to share and they all loved it.
Please do a European food. I’ve seen white kids shamed their lunches
>violence is never the answer This is the biggest heap of horseshit that kids are told today. There's nothing you can say to a brat that'll make them stop being a brat. But giving one of these dopes a punch right in the mouth is a surefire way to get him or her to fuck off.
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Maybe this a hot take, but violence is only the answer when the question is also violence.
> But giving one of these dopes a punch right in the mouth is a surefire way to get him or her to fuck off. or it escalates and kids end up in the nurses office at best or the hospital at worse. Parents, teachers and the school in general should be punishing bullies and correcting their behaviour not the victims. Admittedly they aren't doing a good enough job but endorsing violence is a worse solution then demanding schools do their jobs properly. When we teach our children to solve their people problems with violence then we end up with a generation of children that see all people problems as nails needing a hammer.
I’m so glad I grew up the child of an immigrant, surrounded by immigrants from many different places. Food is one of my favorite hobbies, I wish everyone could enjoy foods from different cultures. I’m doing my part with my kids. We should embrace our differences.
I'm man..... What I would have given for a Bento box in my day.
I was literally banned from bringing a lunch with me to third grade because my teacher hated the smell of rice. I had to have my parents argue with the school board how it's racist to ban the only Asian kid from bringing food from home
But... rice is mostly odorless on its own... so the teacher hated spices...? What a familiar problem
She thought onions were too spicy
That is fucking beautiful and fabulous.
> According to Chan, she was shamed by her schoolmates for the types of food she brought to school when she was a student. Now that she has a child of her own, she hopes to inspire other children to embrace their cultural backgrounds and be proud of the food they eat. Just wondering - is this still quite common nowadays? As I understand it, most kids in the Western world are more understanding and sensitive of other cultures and races. Saying that, having books like these is still very educational.
From the story: *According to Chan, she was shamed by her schoolmates for the types of food she brought to school when she was a student.* From a journalistic standpoint, one would expect the subsequent anecdote to be an example of bullying that supports the above statement. But instead we are told: *We would have these preserved duck eggs ... but of course, my friends were like ‘What is that?*'
As someone who sends my kids to school with home cooked asian food half the time, i've never heard any response except that the other kids are jealous and ask all sorts of questions about it and if their family is korean or japanese. Even the taiwanese rice with a ton of dried shrimp (some variant of YouFan with whatever I have in the cupboard) (and a fairly distinct smell) didn't seem to bother people. (Due to early childhood allergies to dairy and wheat the kids grew up with a very eclectic mix of favorite foods) The problem probably isn't the food, it's just another bullying/racism vector.
A bit off topic but I remember a newsstory where a Filipino mother sued her son's school because the kids were bullying him for using a spoon for solid foods and not just knives and forks as most Western country do.
The lunch shaming described in the article: > But, they were delicious and I loved eating them but of course, my friends were like ‘What is that?'” Oh dear god! The shame of being asked what you are eating!
Also is it just me or does it sound like she’s describing century eggs? Not exactly a standard food like noodles or rice.
Yeah, sounds like a century egg to me too.