Weekly Blog. Chopsticks and Chat.25th February - 3rd March 2013

 "We dwell in the shelter of one another". Irish proverb

Looking at the deflated  balloons  with an ever shrinking 50 written on them this week  got me to thinking of aftermaths – that unsettling time between  events finishing and others  starting. I had finished celebrating my 50^th birthday and then a subsequent skiing trip in France  when I received the news that I was going to Laos to do an evaluation of an emergency nutrition programme . Endings and new beginnings – a full moon on the 25^th February, the first couple of months of a New Year, a quickening  of Spring about to start and  entering a new decade – my fifties. 

My birthday comes a few days after St Brigid’s Day which  is the  1^st February . Imbolc, also known as the feast of St Brigid celebrates the arrival of longer warmer days and the early signs of Spring. The word “Imbolc” means literally  “in the belly” in the Old Irish Neolithic language referring to the pregnancy of ewes. It is one of the four major “fire” festivals (quarter days)  referred to in Irish mythology .The other three festivals are Beltane, (May Day) Lughnasadh ( August harvest)and Samhain (Halloween) .

St Brigid's Cross

  St Brigid was born in AD 450 and her father a pagan chieftain named her after one of the most powerful goddesses of the pagan religion – the goddess of fire. She lived during the time of St. Patrick and was inspired by his preaching. She became a Christian and then a nun. News of St Brigid’s good works spread and soon many young girls from all over the country joined her in the convent. Brigid founded many convents all over Ireland, the most famous  one being in Co. Kildare. She was known to travel the countryside blessing households as she went accompanied by a white cow with red ears. Making a St Brigid’s cross is one of the traditional rituals in Ireland to celebrate the beginnings of early Spring, 1^st February. The crosses are made of pulled rather than cut rushes. They are hung by the door to protect the house from fire and evil. St Brigid and her cross are linked together by the story  that she wove this form of cross at the death bed of either her father or a pagan lord. As was customary, the dirt floor was strewn with rushes both for warmth and cleanliness. Brigid stooped down and started to weave them  into a cross, fastening the points together. The sick man asked what she was doing. She began to explain the cross, and as she talked his delirium quieted and he questioned her with growing interest. Through her weaving he was converted and was baptised at the point of death.

This week, my cousins, a few friends and I went to the Riverbank Restaurant  in Dromahair, a town near where I live to celebrate another’s birthday that had also taken  place in February and my departure to Laos. It was a  warmly convivial evening with everyone chatting animatedly – a good old get together. There was a happy buzz in the restaurant which was almost full and the rising hubbub of conversation resembled the clamouring  noise and activity accompanying this busy time of year – early Spring. The food was as ever delicious – gourmet eating at non gourmet prices. I had halibut and seafood risotto followed by an assiette ( plate) of various mouthful size desserts.

During the meal my cousin’s wife leaned over and gave me a small rectangular package.  I was very touched  as they were a pair of embossed  steel chopsticks and a spoon in a green, cloth case from her daughter,  my cousin. They were also very apt in view  of the fact that I was going to Laos in South –East Asia the following week where chopsticks would be very useful. 

My birthday present

Chopsticks originated in China during the Shang dynasty (1766-1122BC) as a substitute for knives at the table. According  to Confucius a Chinese philosopher, knives were equated with acts of aggression and should not be used to dine. Chopsticks then became the eating utensils of choice as neighbouring Asian countries adopted their use. 

Warmed by the chat going on around me at the table I thought of my impending trip to Laos and reflected back on the many other trips I had made to  countries in Africa and Asia. I felt the metal of the chopsticks heating up in my hand and thought forward to how I would be able to  chat and communicate in this new country and culture that I would encounter. It never ceases to amaze me that despite the vast  differences in countries and cultures throughout the world that  there are common threads that tie us all together. Once you start to unpick   those threads,then conversation becomes easy even if you do not speak the same language. 

I started to imagine my  up and coming  time in Laos –  probably out in a rural district somewhere with my Laotian  work colleagues . Maybe we would be sitting down to eat – after our  first day or so of working together. Maybe the place would also be strange to my colleagues even though it would be their country  but in a different area to where they would be from.  We would all be stilted in our conversation. There would be awkward silences, shy glances, heads down in seemingly rapt concentration. My mind would be racing thinking of all the work ahead. I would fight the instinct to ask lots of questions knowing this would be too intrusive at this stage. The food would arrive and my colleagues would look at me questioningly .Would I eat it? Would I refuse it? They would be worried as  we would probably be somewhere where there would be no other choice of food and if I did not eat – I might become sick.... in the middle of where we were with no doctor, no hospital nearby. I would see these worries reflected in the anxious glances exchanged between them. 

And then  I would take out my chopsticks and survey the food with appreciation as after a busy day of last food eaten at 6 am or so, I would be ravenous.  There would be a quickening of interest and surprised exclamations of how I came to have a pair of chopsticks seeing as Westerners normally ate with knives and forks. I would tell them about my  cousin  and how she had worked in  South East Asia and how I had also worked in countries such as Cambodia and Korea. And because of that my cousin and I  had learned how to eat with chopsticks and also developed a love of South East Asian foods. We would start eating and they would politely compliment me on my use of the chopsticks despite me dropping more food than I was eating! Just like in the Riverbank restaurant there would be an increasing pulsation of warmth and conviviality – the questions would fly back and forth both from me and from my colleagues. They would ask if I was married, had children, what was it like where I lived, what food did we eat, what were the towns and cities like.  I would  cast my mind back to the soft greens, greys and lilacs of  the Leitrim landscape, the fir trees, the windmills slowly wheeling in the distance,   the pungent scent of turf fires, hefty dinners eaten with knives and forks from plates as  big as satellites .Not the small bowls from which we were presently fishing out morsels of food with our chopsticks.I would think of  cattle standing contentedly in boggy fields seemingly oblivious to drizzly days. Then my thoughts would  follow on to  county towns of  Carrick –on –Shannon, Sligo, Enniskillen  built over rivers, some, like Sligo surrounded by a vista of mountain ranges. I would try and describe all this and more  to my colleagues.

And once again  I would marvel as I had done so many times before in different countries, different continents – so different that I sometimes found it hard to believe that  I was on  one planet -  how in the end we all revert back to common themes. That, however different one culture or one country or one situation  is to another, whether a culture uses chopsticks, hands  or knives and forks to eat, whether one religion believes in one god, many gods, animals, ancestors, whether the landscape is desert, rainforest, urban or rural -   where it seems as if there are no common threads -  maybe  a good place to start to start the ball rolling  would be  with  the bit of chat and ..........a pair of cherished  chopsticks.

The Difference Between Heaven and Hell.

There is  an ancient Chinese parable about an old man who knew he would die soon.

 He wanted to know what Heaven and Hell were like. He visited a wise man to ask

“Can you tell me what Heaven and Hell is  like?”

The wise man led him down a path deep into the countryside.

 Finally they came upon a large house with many rooms and went inside.

Inside they found lots of people and many enormous tables with an incredible array of food.

Then the old man noticed a strange thing.

The people, all thin and hungry were holding chopsticks 12 feet  long  and were trying to feed them selves.

But of course they could not get the food to their mouth with such long chopsticks.

The old man said to the wise man. “Now I know what Hell looks like, will you please show me what Heaven looks like

The wise man led  him down the same path a little further until they came upon another large house similar to the first.

They went inside and saw many people well fed and happy and they too had chopsticks 12 feet long.

This puzzled the old man and he asked “ I see all of these people have 12 feet long chopsticks too,

Yet they are well fed and happy, please explain this to me?

The wise man replied.... “In Heaven we feed each other”