Okay, I'm American-born Chinese, or ABC. I had different places to live during my college days, and different sets of roommates. The first place I lived after my one year in the dorms was perfect, but the roommate whose father owned the condo unit we were in got married and we all had to find somewhere else to live. The condo was good while it lasted... actually, it was great! Peaceful, near downtown, I miss it.
So anyway, one of the other places I lived in during college was an apartment I shared with two Chinese roommates, one also American-born, and the other from China. Besides both of them being much better cooks than me (they were much more talented with stir-frying), they were both much better versed than me when it came to Chinese customs. For example, one night there was a bowl of rice sitting on the table (as opposed to each of us serving ourselves out of the rice cooker), and I decided to be, uh, "creative" and stuck a pair of chopsticks standing straight up in the middle of the bowl. The collective gasp! I heard from my roommates was oh-so-palpable. A BIG no-no, just like the number 4. Chopsticks sticking straight up like that is symbolic of funerals. What else? Oh yeah, never give a Chinese person a watch or a clock as a gift, particularly a hospital patient. It indicates the counting down of the seconds of their life.
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