Shared dinner...

I have been invited to dinners many times and some of those experiences were very unique compared to my family's way of eating dinner. There were a couple of  times when my elementary/middle school friends invited me and my family to eat dinner at their house for some certain holidays or celebrations. A few of my friends were White American boys, but I didn't mind having dinner with them. I was thrilled to join in their conversations. However, this was not so much the case for my parents. Although they could speak English fluently, they found conversing with other White parents to be a hard task.

As for me, I naturally mingled in with my friends. We were really close at school and we could relate to each other more since we shared similar experiences. However, I was a little surprised by the strict order in which food is served, a rule that opposed our way of laying out all the food at once. I enjoy any kinds of food, so American food is definitely one of my dish choices along with the more common Chinese food. During the meal, I felt somewhat at ease but felt so of bad for my awkward parents. My parents are similar to Gogol's parents in that they rarely talk about trivial stuff at the diner table even if there were some interesting news.