“One or sep­a­rate bills?”, the wait­ress asks us. She has a slight Japanese accent, but aside from her raven hair, her fea­tures are dis­tinct­ly Occidental.

“One please”.

“We’re treat­ing, Jeff”.

“Nope. You guys are in my town.”

“What does that have to do with any­thing?”, they ask, and threat­en to leave if I pay. It does noth­ing to con­vince me or change my con­vic­tion.

“You guys are a lot more behaved than when I was your age”, says the man sit­ting next to us.

When the bill comes around, we wrench the tray from each oth­ers hands.

“Must be odd”, the man whis­pers to his wife, who’s laugh­ing at us.

But it’s not odd to me. It’s the Chinese way. Like hav­ing too much food when you’re host­ing a par­ty because to run out is the ulti­mate embar­rass­ment.

The same way it’s odd to hear North American peo­ple com­plain about their jobs. To the Chinese, a job is how you take care of your fam­i­ly. It does­n’t mat­ter that it’s mind­less, stress­ful, or hard phys­i­cal labour. You’re just hap­py to have that oppor­tu­ni­ty. All my Canadian Chinese friends feel the same¹.

This is how we were raised. It was­n’t a rule that was spo­ken. We learned it by watch­ing our par­ents, who would clip coupons for gro­ceries, only buy clothes on sale, re-use paper by writ­ing over again with dif­fer­ent coloured inks, but go out to feast with ten peo­ple then fight to pay the bill. Sometimes, they’d even get up to find the serv­er to make a pre­emp­tive, sur­rep­ti­tious pay­ment. Occasionally there were spilled drinks and soiled clothes, as the fight became phys­i­cal². I think it’s nice part of the cul­ture to be so adamant about friend­ship and com­pa­ny.

And I’m glad to be a part of it.

1. Aaron is prob­a­bly one of the few peo­ple I know who under­stands. He’ll fight with me, not just over a bill when eat­ing out, but for movies, gro­ceries, and oth­er sun­dries. [↩]
2. I remem­ber a child cry­ing once, a rel­a­tive of a rel­a­tive, think­ing the par­ents were argu­ing with anger. [↩]