Eating with my hands

Moving to Malaysia has forced me to confront many norms of eating. First off, there is little distinction between the types of food one might eat for different meals here. Breakfast is not milk and cereal nor is it French toast with bacon. Lunch is not a sandwich with soup. Dinner is not chicken enchiladas with roasted vegetables and it's definitely not thin crust pizza topped with arugula and goat cheese. Breakfast here is noodles or rice. Lunch here is noodles or rice. Dinner here is noodles or rice. Of course, there are different variations of these dishes. Kolok mee is a ramen style noodle with pork often eaten at breakfast time, mee goreng is generic fried noodles, and mee goreng ayam is fried noodles with chicken. Then there’s nasi goreng, which is fried rice, nasi goreng ayam, which is fried rice with chicken, and nasi ayam is chicken rice. I could go on, but you get the theme: noodles or rice for all meals.

In addition to the altered variety of foods, modes of eating are different. If using utensils, one always has a spoon in their left hand, and in the right is either chopsticks or a fork. Whenever I am out with teachers, they always ask the server to bring me a fork because I am too slow (and embarrassing to be seen with) while eating with chopsticks. Over time, my ability to eat with chopsticks has improved, but the teachers still insist that I use a fork.

To me, the most interesting part of eating culture here is that it is extremely common to eat with your hands, especially when dining at home. My mentor tells me that eating with her hands allows her to enjoy her food more than she does when eating with silverware. The textures are felt not only with her tongue, but with her fingers, too. She thinks that eating with her hands tricks her brain into thinking the food tastes better, since she is experiencing it with her touch, smell, sight, and of course, taste.

Initially, eating with my hands intimidated me and frankly, it grossed me out. I was raised in a Westernized world in which eating with one’s hands is considered “low class”. In the States, we think that eating with your hands makes you a slob, and it is definitely abnormal unless you are eating a designated “finger food”. I didn’t really realize until coming here that your mode of eating – whether with silverware of chopsticks or only with your right hand or with both of your hands – says heaps about your perceived socioeconomic and cultural background.

I have been eating dinner with the boarding students about twice every week and since I am constantly forgetting to bring my own utensils from home, I have gotten to try my hand at (ha!) eating with my hands. My first time I was nervous: What if I do it wrong and all the students laugh at me? What if I drop all the food before it reaches my mouth and I look like a sloppy baby? But somehow the tin tray of (you guessed it) rice and chicken had to make it into my belly, so I pinched some rice between my fingers and nervously shoveled it into my mouth. I looked around, expecting the hostel students to be giggling at me like they always do, but no one paid any attention to the way I was eating. All the students sat there quietly eating their chicken and rice, some with spoons and some with their hands, but no one seemed to care that I had forgotten my spoon.

Then it occurred to me: eating with their hands is completely normal for these kids. Of course they didn’t make fun of me; touching one’s food with one’s fingers before putting in your mouth is not completely ruined by stigma here like it is in the States. The kids had no idea of my internal debate of whether or not I should eat with my hands because they had absolutely no clue that that norm in their culture is not a norm in my culture. They assumed that for me, an American, eating with my hands is identical to the act of Dayak (umbrella term for people indigenous to Borneo) Malaysians eating with their hands. And here’s the thing: whether you are American or Dayak or whatever, social stigma aside, eating with your hands is an identical act that is and should be a part of the human experience! It’s just that some us find so much wrong with it because we are so obsessed with defining our social class via the way we put our food in our mouths. So, here’s what I think you should do if you’ve never eaten with your hands: try it! Here’s how: 1) wash your hands free of germs and negative stigma 2) eat with your hands 3) wash your hands again. Enjoy!

This blog, "Uprooted", is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.