Funny Cultural Story...Lunch with the neighbors.

Last Saturday, the neighbors upstairs (the family that we are absolutely closest with here) invited us up for lunch. We eat lunch or dinner with them often and were looking forward to it. At 12:00 pm they came down and told us that everything was ready and we should come quickly. When we arrived there we found the usual people there (1 auntie, 1 grandmother, 2 older sisters, 1 younger brother, 1 cousin) and there was another guest there...another Tibetan man who we have never met (we found out later that he is from their same village). The family lives in a small apartment with 2 rooms...one room is the sitting (and sleeping and idol worship)room and one the kitchen. Usually when you have guests over that you are not very comfortable with or who you want to make feel special, you put them in the sitting room, in a special seating area (usually near the idol shelf) and then the rest of the family eats seperately in the kitchen leaving the guests by themselves in the sitting room. The family only comes to check on you every few minutes, filling your tea and giving you more food. When we first moved here, we would sit in the sitting room, while they would sit in the kitchen and we would eat seperately but after a few months they told us they considered us one "family" and we would always eat in the kitchen or sitting room ALL TOGETHER...but last Saturday was different for some reason (we found out later that they were serving special food from their village so it was a "special day"). We arrived at 12 and they put us in the special seats in the sitting room. They had food laid out for us and they all sat in the kitchen (mind you the apartment is small and the kitchen is just on the other side of the sitting room, so we could hear everything they were saying). Ryan and I felt so uncomfortable. We were laughing so hard (and making jokes about how much we must have stunk, etc)...trying not to be so loud that they would hear us but it was WEIRD. Imagine this: you are invited to your close friends to join them for family dinner. When you arrive, they have set up special seats and special place settings and they put you in their living room to eat. They tell you to enjoy their food and then they go to the kitchen to sit, eat, talk and laugh with their family, checking on you every few minutes. It was just so funny. It is so cultural and in their minds it is respectful to have you sit apart from them in their special room but so different from what we are used to or expected. Oh the joys of CULTURE!!!!