My “Story behind a picture” series contains posts, where I present one photo only, and a commentary to explain the context and what is happening there. All of these mini stories are either interesting, shocking, nice, extraordinary, or perhaps typical for a given community or place, but strange for visitors from elsewhere. Or they are simply interesting from some other point of view. Anyway, I will try to keep them short. (And sweet? – we will see.)
This photo was taken in Luang Prabang in Laos, in one of the street cafés. I liked the place, so I ordered my chicken with rice with vegetables, the usual safe bet everywhere, if you are not in an experimenting mood regarding food.
My food arrived, and I started to eat, when I suddenly noticed that the owner (or at least a staff member) of the restaurant also sat down at the next table, and he was already eating his food. I looked at his plate, trying to find out what he was eating. No, I swear I didn’t stare at it, it was only a glance for a few seconds at most.
But when this guy noticed that I was looking at his food, he suddenly jumped up from his table, grabbed his plate, brought it over to my table, and without asking anything, he scooped a little from his plate onto my plate, saying at the same time: “Oh, it’s very good, try it, it’s pork,” and he returned to his seat.
Similar things happened to me in Vietnam, when the owner of the small restaurant saw that I had eaten everything from the plate, he or she quickly ran to my table and refilled it with some more rice and vegetables.
Do you think this would happen in your home country, too?
