Beginning with the snippet, write something about what you've overheard; imagine the reason for the person saying it or imagine the character of a person who says something like that etc.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A place for Writing 12 students to read each other's writing, to critique, to suggest, to improve.
About Me
- Brad
- Former adult teacher who loves island beaches. Happy homebody and family man; once devoted dog owner, now without Tashi, my Tibetan Terrier. I prefer the absurdity of the imagination to the absurdity of imagining nothing.
5 comments:
A young man walked into Wendy’s tonight. He wore a hoodie and looked to be about 17 or 18 years old or so. He went over to a table near me and was greeted with this:
“Hey Simon! You’re just in time to say grace.”
To that, he said nothing and sat down. Now, grace is something said over a formal dinner (or not at all in many homes). Certainly, we don’t see grace being said at a fast food restaurant.
So, what was going on I wonder? Perhaps he was late?
But it got me to thinking. I’ve had a number of experiences of grace over my life. As a child, we said grace once in a while, mostly for Sunday dinners. Our grace was simple: “For food, friends and all God sends we give Him grateful thanks.”
Since it was so easy, I remember being called on to say it from time to time. We would bow our heads and I’d say it quickly. All would answer, “Amen,” and we’d eat.
I also remember one of prairie uncles, a pastor in the Lutheran church. Grace at his house was considerably different. We’d bow our heads, just like at home, and then my uncle would say grace, but grace was, for him, a longwinded affair. He wasn’t much of a speaker, my uncle, so I mostly didn’t understand a word he’d said (my ears were fine back then!) as he mumbled away. Grace was a few minutes long!
Believe me, I was very relieved to say “Amen” at his house!
It happened to me once, doing eavesdropping when I was in VCC studying ASL. It was difficult for me to do it because I wasn’t comfortable, first of all and making an assumption out of what they said. I still remember three teens over at A & W after school chatting about whether to grow mustache, goatee, or a sideburn. I was laughing secretly because I was thinking about the same thing, but not growing any of those, of course! I was, however, thinking of dying my hair red, or any of rebellious colors. But I’m still thinking about it, though! Who knows, maybe you’ll see me in redhead next time!
Last Sunday, I started my Sun Run clinic. When I entered the community center, the meeting room were full of people. I overheard the organizer announced that we were divided into three groups: walker, learn-to-run, and run-faster. Unfortunately, this year there was only one person in walker’s group. I gratified that I joined learn-to-run group; otherwise, it would be weird to see that only I and an old lady in walker’s group surrounded by three instructors. Anyway, this lady will have her “VIP” training this year, and I hope she would enjoy that. Our groups’ structure looked like a spindle, got huge in the middle while small in two ends. I heard the team leader said that my group had a shovel of people. I never heard of this saying before, but I thought it makes sense. When the training started, I found the scheme was different from what I learned last year. Last year I was in walker’s group, we did fast-pace and slow-pace walking; this year we will do brisk walk and jog switch. I recalled my son was in run-faster group last year, his time was about one hour in 10 kilometer, not too bad. You want to know my time? The truth is I don’t have my time because I held back before running. But maybe this year I will try, who knows.
I was lurking around the New Westminster Public Library when I overheard a couple of elderly gentlemen. It seemed like they knew each other and were discussing a mysterious item that one of them wanted or needed and the other had knowledge about it. One of the men offered to sell him one. The conversation went something like this.
“I have an extra one. If you need it, I could sell it to you.”
“Well, I’d have to take a look at it.”
“Oh yea sure, anytime just let me know”
“I’m not supposed to have certain items on my balcony.”
“Yes, you should check first if you can have it on your balcony.”
Hmm…? It could have been a barbeque or a satellite dish. I don’t know but I also sort of heard them discuss that there was a wire that came with it so, probably a satellite dish.
Last weekend, when I was taking skytrain home from Lougheed town centre, in front of my seat, two orient ladies were chatting in awkward English. Probably they were from different countries. One of them said, "A neighbour just greeted me Happy Chinese New Year! For the moment, I didn't know how to react, and then I told him I'm Korean."
In Asia, many counties might have similar cultures and people might look the same for some other ethnic groups. We see Chinese New Year (English) all the time while Vietnamese call "Tet", Korean call "Sollal" (not solar) and, in Taiwan we mostly say Lunar New Year or Spring Festival. Maybe it's because the "Lunar" calendar was first applied in China since Xia dynasty (2070 BC~1600 BC). Probably it's because many overseas Chinese celebrate this festival and call the day with "Chinese" that has impressed most people. But, in order to avoid being a embarrassed situation, greeting with happy lunar new year or spring festival probably would be better for people sometimes ain't sure where the person they're greeting from.
Post a Comment